


Courage

by strawberryfinn



Category: Glee
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Child Abuse, F/M, Gen, Heartbreak, Language, M/M, Multi, Other, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:06:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryfinn/pseuds/strawberryfinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>There's a knock at the door and Kurt opens it to see a drenched Blaine Anderson looking lost and defeated.</i> </p><p>Blaine tells his parents about his relationship with Kurt with disastrous consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is the first Klaine story I ever wrote. It's completed and on Fanfiction.net if you would like to check it out, under the same username. I decided to put it up on AO3 and I hope you'll enjoy it :)

After that initial kiss, after that first rush, after Blaine expresses his feelings and admits that he wants to be with Kurt and _only_ Kurt, Kurt is happy. Yes, his life is far from perfect and he worries about going to school and facing ignorance and prejudice in the Neanderthal form of bullying, but Kurt has Blaine. Blaine is _his_ , and Kurt is so happy, so _proud._

The first person he tells, as can be expected, is Mercedes. Mercedes makes a big fuss after she receives Kurt's initial text. She replies with a text with many exclamation marks and capital letters, and as he's about to reply, she calls him and squeals in delight. When Mercedes sees Kurt at school, she throws up her hands in excitement and grabs onto him and hugs him.

Second, Kurt tells his family at dinner. The Hudson-Hummels are gathered around the dinner table, and conversation flows easily between them. Finn and Burt talk about sports, Kurt compliments Carole on her new blouse. 

Kurt breathes to himself and debates whether or not he should even tell them—first because Burt didn't have a great first impression of Blaine with him sleeping over and what not, second because he's not as close to Carole as he would like to believe, and third because he's not quite sure how Finn will react in spite of his claims to be there for Kurt and to support him. But he wants to tell them so badly, he wants everybody to know about his gorgeous, talented, intelligent _boyfriend_ Blaine, that he shudders in excitement and speaks up loudly. “Dad, Carole, Finn... I have some news.”

His family looks up expectantly, and Kurt pauses (which he claims he does for dramatic effect). But he can't help it, the words bubble out of him and he bursts (like a, self-admittedly and very embarrassedly, teenage girl). “Blaine and I are going out! He asked me to be his boyfriend!”

As soon as the words escape, Kurt can feel his face flush. There's silence for several seconds, and then-

“Kurt, I'm so happy for you!” Carole exclaims, getting up from her chair to give her stepson a hug. She kisses the top of head. “Blaine seems like such a nice boy—you should have him come over for dinner so we can all get to know him better-”

“That boy better come by so I can set some ground rules,” Burt says firmly, pointing his finger at his son, causing Kurt to turn even a deeper shade of pink. “He better come by so I can tell him how he's going to treat you—so I can talk to him: man-to-man. No funny business, no overnight stays-”

“Kurt, that's awesome,” Finn grins, looking kind of like a big, dumb Golden Retriever. He looks hungrily at the display of mashed potatoes and steak on the table. “Can we eat though? And then ask questions?”

Finn is cut off by Carole smacking his arm, “Finn, let your brother tell us about his new _boyfriend!_ ” She goes back to ruffling Kurt's hair and reacting in a way similar to Mercedes.

Their voices overlap as they pepper him with questions, and Kurt smiles, basking in the attention. Blaine Anderson is _his_ boyfriend, and Kurt Hummel couldn't be happier.

+

“Blaine, I've gone over every possible act of kindness I've committed in the past year and I still can't figure out what deed was so good that karma decided to bless me. How did I get so lucky? Do you just want to tell me already?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I'm talking about—I'm an insecure, uncertain, though very fashionable, admittedly almost feminine resident gay, and you're confident, brave, undeniably handsome, and _insanely_ talented and almost masculine heartthrob, yet you chose me. Why?”

“...”

“Blaine?”

“Kurt, listen to me. I am absolutely crazy about you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I appreciate you and respect you and am growing to _love_ you so much. You don't give yourself enough confidence. You are courageous and artistic and accomplished, and if anybody is lucky, it is me.”

+

Kurt Hummel is ridiculously proud of his new relationship. He wants anyone and everyone to know. He and Blaine hold hands on their way to classes at Dalton, and if students at McKinley hadn't gotten the message when Blaine serenaded him in the open lunch area, then they had to have heard about Kurt and Blaine at prom.

Kurt didn't care who knew about their relationship—rather, he wanted _everybody_ to know, that he—Kurt Hummel, resident stereotypical, flamboyant gay student, had landed Blaine Anderson, a boy with the body and sculpted features of a Greek god, and with intelligence to match.

Kurt was so proud of his relationship with Blaine, maybe that was the reason he didn't notice until around two and a half months into their relationship that he hadn't met Blaine's family.

Blaine is always over at the Hudson-Hummels, and in spite of Burt's initial protests and very overprotective glares, Blaine is sometimes allowed to spend the night when it gets too late for him to drive home or back to Dalton—on the couch of course, but still. 

Blaine makes space for himself in Carole's heart by offering to help her cook and by complimenting her on her outfits and by exclaiming, “Kurt never told me he had an older sister!” when he met her for the first time. Blaine wins over Finn by tutoring Finn in English and Math and... all of his classes. Blaine even gains Burt's blessing (which Burt gives very begrudgingly), by sitting and watching every football and basketball game Burt watches. Blaine helps Burt out in the auto shop and refrains completely from talking about what he and Kurt do together. Blaine comes to the McKinley football games and knows all of Kurt's friends in Glee Club.

But Kurt—with the exception of their mutual friends at Dalton—knows nothing about Blaine's life and friends and family. 

When he brings this up for the first time, they're getting coffee at the Lima Bean and Blaine sprays a mouthful of coffee all over the table. The next five minutes are spent grabbing napkins to clean off Blaine's blazer and the table and to apologize profusely to the cleaning staff.

By the time they finish cleaning, their conversation has drifted onto something else, but as they are about to leave, Kurt brings it up again.

“Blaine—I mentioned it in there before, but why haven't I met your family or your friends?” he reaches for his jacket and takes Blaine's offered hand. They exit Lima Bean, Kurt's hands enveloped in Blaine's, and delight coloring every one of Kurt's features.

Blaine isn't answering, Kurt notes. Blaine looks down at the floor, fiddles with his scarf, anywhere but Kurt's eyes.

“Blaine?” Kurt presses gently, but Blaine remains silent until they get into his car. His boyfriend fiddles with his car keys and sets the radio on a rather mainstream station—really, Kurt needs to make some mix tapes for his boyfriend at some point—and starts the car. It's only when they're out of the parking lot and on their way to the Hudson-Hummel residence that Blaine responds.

“You've met my friends.” Blaine's voice is strained and guarded, but he tries to give the impression that everything is casual. “You know Wes and David and-”

Kurt looks at his boyfriend concernedly out of the corner of his eye. Blaine's forehead is furrowed and he bites his lip in a way that would be adorable except for the fact that he's not giving Kurt a straight answer.

“I mean the ones _outside_ of Dalton,” Kurt says. “I understand that you board at Dalton and Cincinnati's a bit far off, but I would love to meet your mom and dad. You've met everyone important to me and I think it's important and only right that I do the same for you.”

Blaine looks straight ahead, his eyes focused on the road. His forehead is still wrinkled in what Kurt thinks may be anxiety, and the grip his hands have on the steering wheel are so tight that the tips of his fingers are white.

“Blaine, are you listening to me?” Kurt's voice is hurt now, and he's trying to prevent himself from becoming visibly upset. “We could make a weekend trip of it, if you wanted to. I'm sure my dad wouldn't mind.”

There's a moment of silence, and Blaine's reply is terse. “Kurt, I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Why not?” Kurt looks at him, wide-eyed. “I mean, aren't your parents interested in your new boyfriend? They're not curious in the least?”

Blaine makes a frustrated noise, and Kurt feels bad. Is he annoying his boyfriend? What has he done wrong? Shouldn't Blaine want to show off Kurt the way Kurt flaunts off Blaine?

Blaine pulls to a stop in front of the Hudson-Hummel house. He pauses for a second and wrings his hands, while Kurt looks on, concerned.

“Kurt,” Blaine murmurs, placing a comforting hand on his boyfriend's shoulder. “Kurt,” he brings his other hand to Kurt's face in a caring gesture and strokes his boyfriend's cheek. “I-I...,” he breaks off and tries again.

“Blaine, what is it?” Kurt whispers, all of his darkest fears coming true. “Are you embarrassed? Are you ashamed of me?” his voice breaks in alarm and he tries to keep his anxiety from taking over. “I'm sorry Blaine, I-”

“Kurt, don't be silly,” Blaine interjects. “I am crazy about you, I told you that. And I am so proud of you... I'm just not about my own actions and myself. Kurt... my family doesn't know about you,” he pauses, his eyes softening. “I don't know how to tell them.”

“What do you mean?” Kurt asks, shocked. “I thought you were so self-assured and so proud of the fact that you're gay and you've come to terms with who you are and-”

“I _have_!” Blaine puts his head in his hands. “I have, Kurt. I know who I am. I know I like boys, I know I like _you_! I am crazy about you, I am in love with you, I am-”

“Then why don't you have the guts to tell your _family_ about me?” Kurt's voice is hurt and betrayed. “I told _everyone_ I care about and even everybody I don't give the time of day about you. I am so proud of my relationship with you and I don't know why you don't feel the same way. Did I do something to embarrass you or damage your reputation? I deserve to know the truth—we're in this together.”

“Kurt, it's not... like that for me,” Blaine's voice shakes, and Kurt thinks, with horror, that Blaine's about to cry. “I mean, my family knows I'm gay, but with my parents it's like... a sin or something. 

“They're embarrassed about the fact that I like boys. They call it my 'situation' and they don't want anybody to know about it, so we don't talk about it at all. My relationship with my parents is not like the one you have with Carole and your dad. I don't know how to explain it to you, but my sexuality is like an off-limits talk zone.

“I go home and my dad asks me if I've found any new girls that suits my fancy. And when I tell him, 'Dad, you know I'm gay,' he acts like he hasn't heard me, like I'm invisible or something. My dad had me work on fixing a car with him for a whole summer—not because it was father-son activity, but because it was a way to make me more masculine. And my mom is even worse because she claims she loves me and then she just stands there whenever anything about prospective love interests comes up and she just looks so... _ashamed_ of me.

“They sent me to _gay_ camp, Kurt! So that they could eradicate the gay from me like it was some contagious disease or something! And that time I got the living crap beaten out of me when I asked that guy to Sadie's, I came home a bloody mess and my dad asked me if I'd learned my lesson!”

“Blaine,” Kurt starts, and before he knows it, Blaine is reaching over and hugging Kurt, and sobbing into his shoulder. Kurt freezes up, before he twists into the familiar motion of returning his boyfriend's embrace. “It's okay,” he shushes, as he feels his clothing dampen with Blaine's tears. “It's okay.”

“I'm so sorry,” Blaine whimpers, his curls brushing Kurt's forehead as he breathes into Kurt's shoulder. “I'm such a coward; I just don't know how to tell them and I want to so _badly_ ,” his voice arches onto a higher note. “I just don't want you—or me—to get hurt any more than necessary.”

“Shhh,” Kurt kisses Blaine's forehead. “It's okay.”

He doesn't tell Blaine that he's not a coward and he doesn't tell Blaine he's not wrong, but he holds the shivering and shaking figure until Blaine's cries subside.

+

Blaine spends the night on the couch and Kurt spends the night wide-awake as he cries into his own pillow.

At breakfast the next morning, Kurt is thankful that his dad is still asleep, Carole has an early shift at work, and Finn is too busy stuffing his face with pancakes to comment on Kurt's puffy, red eyes and Blaine's downcast, miserable expression.

+

“I'm going to tell them.”

“Blaine, you don't have to-”

“No, I do. I'm going home this weekend and I'm going to tell them tonight. I don't care anymore—I'm sick of being scared and I keep telling you that you need to stand up for yourself and fight back and not care what other people think, but I'm not taking my own advice. I'm being a hypocrite.”

“Blaine-”

“No, Kurt. I love you, and I'm their son. They should be happy for me. I'm tired of this.”

“Have I ever told you I love you?”

“Not for the last fifteen minutes, no.”

“...I really do though, you know.”

“I know. I love you too.”

+

The weather's been behaving recently, so when Kurt wakes up to the sound of thunder, he nearly has a heart attack and falls out of bed. He glances at the clock—10:00—which is actually considerably late for when he usually wakes up, despite the fact that it's a Saturday. He enters the family room to wake up Blaine, but the blankets are folded and Blaine's gone.

Carole, who's bustling around making breakfast in the kitchen, informs Kurt that Blaine left two hours earlier and didn't have the heart to wake Kurt, but there's a note on the refrigerator from Blaine.

_Good morning, Sunshine! See you soon. -Blaine_

Kurt carefully folds the piece of lined paper and puts it into his pocket to add to his admittedly embarrassing Collection-of-Cute-Things-From-Blaine-Anderon and helps Carole with breakfast. He's a bit upset that Blaine didn't wake him up to say goodbye, but he knows Blaine's on his way to Cincinnati right now and that it's a two hour to a two and a half hour trip and that he'll see—as Blaine noted—his boyfriend soon.

After breakfast, Kurt mopes around the house. He looks frustratedly at the rain and decides to try to do some homework, but those efforts end up in him looking disinterestedly through some Vogue magazines instead. Finn is dead to the world, buried underneath his blankets and snoring like a bear when Kurt checks in to see if his stepbrother wants to do everything. Kurt tries calling Mercedes, but she doesn't answer, and Tina is with Mike so she can't come over, and when his desperate attempts to find some company lead him to even call _Rachel_ , she's out of town with her dads.

The rain falls harder and louder on the windows and the roof, and Kurt is frustrated. He didn't realize how dependent he has grown on Blaine, and decides that—you know what? Kurt Hummel can find something perfectly productive to do without his boyfriend there, which leads him to experimenting with baking a batch of healthy carrot and zucchini muffins.

Kurt has just popped the batch of muffins into the oven and is cleaning off the flour on the counter when there's a knock at the door and Kurt opens it to see a drenched Blaine Anderson looking cold and lost and confused and defeated.


	2. Chapter 2

With a whimper, Blaine latches onto Kurt. All of the sudden, Kurt doesn't care that he's in an apron and is covered in flour and carrot strips—he hugs Blaine back, ignoring the fact that he's getting incredibly damp. He runs his fingers through Blaine's dripping hair, kisses Blaine's forehead, tries to warm his boyfriend up—do _something_ to make himself seem as though he's not useless and as though he can help his boyfriend in some way.

 

Blaine shivers convulsively and only sobs more loudly, grabbing more desperately onto Kurt. Water drips down his face in rivers, and Kurt can't tell if it's the rain or Blaine's tears.

 

“Oh my God, what happened?” Kurt says gently, trying to conceal the panic in his voice. “You're soaked to the bone! Let me go get you a towel or something to dry you off-” he starts to try to pull himself out of Blaine's grasp, but Blaine only cries even harder and wraps his arms even tighter around Kurt's torso.

 

Kurt stands there for who knows how long, as Blaine's shoulders heave with his sobs. Kurt kisses his boyfriend, dappling his face with kisses, thinking about how he is usually on the receiving end of this tender, caring display of affection. 

 

“Shhh...,” Kurt eventually says, breaking the silence that was only punctuated by Blaine's cries. “It's okay, sweetheart. Tell me what happened.” He tries to ignore the fact that his heart is racing out of control and tries to ignore the blooming bruises on Blaine's cheekbone and eye.

 

Blaine's choking on his sobs and stutters as he tries to get the words out. “H-he-h-G-God K-Kurt, I-I c-can't even-” his words are punctuated by sharp cries.

 

“Shhhh,” Kurt coaxes, kissing Blaine's cheek. He's trying to keep his composure, but he's never seen Blaine like this—so disheveled and broken. “It's okay, just take it slowly.”

 

“Um... hey guys, is everything alright?” Both Kurt and Blaine turn their faces in alarm to see a shocked and nervous looking Finn. Finn's hair is raised in spikes and his eyes are bleary and he's obviously just woken up, but the way he's looking at Kurt and Blaine in concern is endearing.

 

With a choked cry, Blaine breaks his eye contact with Finn and buries his face into Kurt's shoulder again, Kurt's damp sweater serving as a place to muffle his anguish.

 

“Finn, can you do me a favor?” Kurt asks carefully, making sure to continue rubbing Blaine's back. “Do you think you could get me a towel? And ask your mom to make some hot chocolate? Oh, and,” his mind registers the slight burning smell, “my zucchini-carrot bread is in the oven—can you take it out? Don't forget to wear an oven mitt!”

 

“Yeah, sure man, no worries,” Finn says hurriedly, and rushes off, his footsteps loud against the floorboards. Kurt knows from one of his attempted brother-brother bonding conversations with Finn that crying girls freak Finn out more than anything, and now he's realizing that crying boys probably do even more so.

 

“Blaine, sweetheart, let's sit you down, okay?” Kurt is unused to being the strong one in their relationship—after all, Kurt was first drawn to Blaine as his knight in shining armor who saved him from Karofsky and who comforted him as he faced bullying head-on at McKinley. But Blaine is hurting, and there's no way in hell that Kurt's not going to step up to the plate and help his boyfriend.

 

Blaine nods and collapses on the couch with Kurt. He curls up, and as Kurt tries to pull away to take off his damp sweater, Blaine grabs onto him like a needy child, “P-please don't leave.”

 

Kurt sighs, his heart breaking, “Blaine, I'm not going anywhere.”

 

“Hey, um, Kurt?” Kurt looks up to see Finn holding a huge, fluffy towel and a clean set of clothes. “Here.” Finn holds out the towel in Kurt's face, and Kurt accepts it, and begins gently drying Blaine off.

 

“Blaine, what happened to your face?” Finn asks aghast, and as Blaine starts with a whole new series of sobs, Kurt throws Finn a _Get out of here right now_ look, to which Finn obeys as he nervously and quickly disappears, mumbling something about zucchini-carrot bread. Kurt continues drying Blaine off, and finally manages to coax him to change out of his soaking outfit.

+

About fifteen minutes later, Kurt is cuddled up on the couch next to a considerably drier Blaine who is quietly sipping a cup of hot chocolate prepared by Carole and nibbling aimlessly on a piece of zucchini-carrot bread. Blaine's looking down miserably at the cup of cocoa in his hands, but at least he's warming himself up and has stopped quaking convulsively. Kurt reminds himself to thank Carole a million times after this, as Carole simply marched in and set a tray of two hot chocolate mugs filled to the brim with whipped cream and left, no questions asked (though Kurt highly suspects he will be interrogated later). Kurt usually tries to watch what he eats, but he'll make an exception for Carole's hot chocolate—which she uses freshly melted chocolate chips to make—and for Blaine's sake of course.

 

“Blaine?” Kurt breaks the silence after they've both been sitting in the awkward quiet for long enough. “Honey, you want to tell me what happened?”

 

Blaine sets his cup of cocoa down and grabs a decorative couch pillow. He pulls his knees up to his chest and cushions the pillow on his kneecaps to rest his head. His disheveled curls fall naturally over his forehead, and his whole body seems tense.

 

More silence. And then-

 

“I told him— _them_ —about you— _us._ ” Blaine's voice is deeper than usual, and laced with sorrow. He glances up at Kurt, his eyelids still rimmed red and the bruises dappling his cheekbones even more evident now that he is dry. 

 

Kurt extends his hand and Blaine squeezes it. 

 

“At first they thought I was joking, but I told them about you and about how happy I am with you, and,” Blaine gulps hard, his voice wavering as he continues. “My dad _hit_ me, Kurt, he punched me—beat the living daylights out of me. I was on the floor under him as he just kept punching my face when my mom begged him to stop and... he wouldn't even listen to me, Kurt.” 

 

Blaine starts crying again and Kurt rubs his shoulders, feeling helpless as Blaine continues. Blaine goes on recklessly now, his emotions seeping through his words. “He told me that he thought it was only a phase and that I would get over it. He said, 'You're not welcome here.' He told me to 'get out' of my own home, that a f-faggot wasn't allowed in his house... he c-called me... and _you_... terrible, horrible names, Kurt.

 

“It was _horrible,_ Kurt. He's my dad—why would he do this to me? And my mom was just standing there crying and she didn't do _anything_ to help me and they just kicked me out and,” Blaine's babbling now, barely even stopping to catch a breath as the tears begin flowing freely again. “I-I didn't know where to come and I'm sorry I came here to dump this on you, but,” Blaine's voice breaks in pain, “I don't know what to do...” his voice trails off weakly and he begins to shake again.

 

“Shh, of course you're welcome here,” Kurt whispers, pulling Blaine close to him. Blaine replies in a whimper, and Kurt runs his fingers through Blaine's hair. “I promise I won't let him hurt you again, I am _so_ sorry you had to go through that.”

 

He wishes he could say more, but right now his heart is still pounding in shock, and what can he do? He wishes he could have been there with Blaine so that Blaine wouldn't have had to face the abuse by himself, he wishes Mr. Anderson was as understanding as his own dad, he wishes so much that things could be _different,_ but his wishes are no use.

 

Kurt strokes Blaine's cheek absently until his boyfriend stops shaking and his whimpers subside to become slow and steady deep breaths, a troubled expression still dominating his sleeping face. Kurt pulls a blanket over Blaine and wishes there was more he could do. Nobody's going to hurt Blaine though. That's a promise Kurt intends to keep.

+

The boys—Kurt, Blaine, and Finn—pretend that they are staying quiet because they want to be and they are _definitely_ not eavesdropping on the conversation Carole and Burt are having as they take turns yelling at/responding to/pleading Mr. Anderson on the speaker phone in the kitchen.

 

“Your own son-”

 

“How could you do that to your own child?”

 

“You are lucky that I-”

 

“I ought to-”

 

“It's none of your business!”

 

“Damn straight he's my business—he is important to my son and he sure as hell is important to all of us-”

 

“What is _wrong_ with you?”

 

With each escalating reply, with each string of words more biting than the next, Blaine hunches over in the couch and whimpers more audibly, arms wrapped around his stomach as if he's in pain. Finn looks dumbly at the floor; his eyes flicker up to study Blaine in concern, drift over to Kurt, back to the floor in a pattern.

 

Kurt sure as hell doesn't believe in God—or gods of any kind—but he finds himself pleading for help in his head anyway, to anyone who might listen. _He doesn't deserve this, please let them take him back. Please help him get through this, please let him be okay. I_ love _him and nobody should be hurt like this-_

 

 

His thoughts are interrupted by a shout from Burt: “He looks like he has been beaten half to death—I could call the authorities for this and report you for _child abuse!”_

 

“How dare you threaten me-”

 

“He is your own flesh and blood! You are a disgrace to the human race! You do not deserve to call yourself a man, you are a sick monster—you deserve to rot in Hell you son-of-a-bitch!”

 

Blaine flinches visibly, and Kurt reaches out immediately to squeeze his hand. 

 

“Blaine,” Kurt whispers gently, “we can get out of here—you don't have to hear this.”

 

Blaine blinks at him, shiny tears pooling in his eyes. “No, I... I need to know what's gonna happen to me, Kurt.”

 

Before Kurt can begin to formulate a reply, they hear the sound of the phone hanging up. Seconds later, Carole and Burt emerge—Burt's expression is grave while Carole looks like she's about to burst into tears, her face an angry contorted mess.

 

“Blaine, honey, you will... be staying with us for awhile,” Carole says gently, and Kurt's heart breaks. 

 

He pulls Blaine into a hug as Blaine breaks down again. Kurt is grateful when he feels Carole's presence above him, as she starts whispering soothing words to Blaine as she rubs his back. They're joined by Burt who “ahems” awkwardly, grips Blaine's shoulder in a supposedly comforting manner, and tensely says, “There, there,” over and over. Then even Finn is there, hugging Blaine and saying, “Don't worry, everything's gonna be alright.”

 

And Kurt hopes so, for Blaine's sake. He hopes and prays and wishes—everything needs to be alright.

+

School arrangements, fortunately, stay the same. As the Andersons have already paid Dalton's tuition for the remainder of the semester, Blaine continues to board at Dalton during the week, but he sees Kurt pretty regularly. Blaine can't stand to be at Dalton on the weekends anymore—Kurt knows that only Wes knows about the whole ordeal—and Blaine is a regular the Hudson-Hummel residence now.

 

Kurt has never been more thankful for Carole and Finn as he is now.

 

 

He loves Carole when she firmly puts her foot down—“Burt, don't be _ridiculous,_ there is no way that poor boy is sleeping on the couch any longer! He has already been through enough as it is and we are the closest thing he has to a family right now! I am going to fix him up a bed in the family room and that is that—I knew keeping this cot would come in handy at some point.” 

 

Finn seems to have decided that the role of protective brother extends not only to Kurt but also to boys-Kurt-is-in-love-with, or namely Blaine. When Blaine comes to see the New Directions practice one day after school at Dalton, he is met face-first with a slushie from Azimio. Kurt has never seen Finn move so fast and Azimio look so much like he was going to crap his pants. Also, when Kurt enters his house to see Finn laying out clothes that, “You know, I thought Blaine could wear these because... well, you know, Kurt not everybody can wear what you wear—I mean, not that there's anything _wrong_ with what you wear but some people—and don't worry! They're clean,” on Blaine's cot, it takes all Kurt's effort to keep him from hugging his stepbrother.

 

 

Kurt also has come to realize (for the millionth time) how fortunate he is to have his father. When Burt claps a hand on Blaine's shoulder and says, “Son, just so you know you can talk to me if you need anything,” Kurt swallows a lump the size of a golfball in his throat.

 

But Kurt is worried about Blaine.

 

Yes, Blaine is alive, and he is recovering. He brushes off the bruises on his face as a “I was stupid and tried to reach a book too high on the shelf causing the whole bunch of books to fall” accident and when Kurt visits him at Dalton, he looks happy and attentive, but everything seems forced. Blaine moves and breathes and walks and eats (though sparingly), but nothing seems real and though he's alive, he seems _lifeless._ His voice lacks luster during Glee practice, and even Blaine's greatest fans among the Warblers are criticizing him. There are circles so deep under his eyes that a worried Mike Chang asks Kurt if Blaine's sick and if Kurt would like him to bring in some of Mrs. Chang's panda hair tea, and Blaine seems so thin and fragile that even Puck says that he'll swipe a sandwich from Subway for him (to which Mr. Schuester hurriedly chastises him—“Puck, theft is _wrong!”_ )

 

And as much as Kurt appreciates his friends'—or his sort-of friends (well Mike is by default because he's Tina's boyfriend, but Puck?)—caring gestures, he also has a self-admittedly selfish desire to be the one to support Blaine.

 

Though Kurt hates to admit it, he feels guilty for Blaine's situation. Blaine's abandonment was caused by Kurt—if Kurt wasn't in the picture, the Andersons could have gone on pretending and Blaine would have been happy and none of this would have happened. 

 

His guilt builds up inside of him, feeling heavier and heavier in his chest, and beginning to feel like a weight pressing down on his lungs. 

 

He brings it up one day, as he and Blaine are lying in Kurt's bed together (a privilege that Burt has granted—as long as they keep the door open). Blaine is staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, his arms cushioning his head, and Kurt is absently stroking his (or rather Finn's) plaid, flannel shirt. (Kurt really hates flannel, but he has to admit that the olive green color brings out Blaine's eyes—and let's face it, he's biased, and his man looks good in anything).

 

“I'm sorry,” Kurt blurts.

 

Blaine, who has been shaken and jumpy the past week, starts, and twists his head to look over at Kurt. His hazel eyes look a hurt as he meets Kurt's gaze. “What?”

 

“I'm sorry—it's my fault that all of this has happened,” Kurt states. “If I hadn't told you to bring it up with your parents, you'd still be at home and-” he's babbling, his emotions flooding out like a waterfall through a broken dam.

 

“Kurt, don't be ridiculous,” Blaine chastises him gently, “it would have come out anyways. If not with you, with someone else, and,” he gulps, “it was good for me. Well not good for me obviously, but it was important for me to know how my parents would react.” Blaine studies Kurt's face, and doesn't say anything, but an unspoken tension lies between them. 

 

Kurt looks back at him. This is the most Blaine has said in one sitting (other than Warbler practice) since he came in through the rain that night.

 

“I'm so sorry you have to go through this,” Kurt finally says.

 

Blaine doesn't answer, but his body language speaks volumes as he shifts his gaze back to the ceiling. _Can we change the subject already?_

 

And Kurt does, gently placing his lips on Blaine's soft ones. Blaine closes his eyes and deepens the kiss, his dark lashes prominent against his pale skin. His body arches forward, and before Kurt can realize what's happening, both boys are panting and racing to get undressed. Kurt treads quietly to the door and shuts it, hoping that—for both his and Blaine's sakes—that Burt doesn't hear, before Blaine scrambles and practically rips off Kurt's pants. And the whole time Kurt tugs on Blaine's curly, messy hair and kisses him heatedly is, _I can't believe I didn't think of this before._

 

Neither of them has ever done anything like this before—the furthest they have gone is passionately making out. They're both virgins, so each movement is incredibly awkward and clumsy and inherently gentle as each boy is afraid to mess up or to hurt the other. Kurt drags his tongue across Blaine's chest with a snarl (and prays that he looks sexy rather than petrified and ridiculous like the way he feels). Blaine responds with moans so loud that Kurt is convinced any second, Burt will kick the door in waving a knife, demanding to know who is dying or if Kurt is watching gay porn again (it was only one time and it was completely an accident caused by an annoying pop-up from the Internet—he swears!)

 

Kurt laps at Blaine's navel and sneaks his bright pink tongue up to Blaine's nipples, which harden instantly. He bites hard on Blaine's nipples and Blaine practically mewls in desire, to Kurt's amusement. With a smirk, Kurt snakes his fingers down to Blaine's arousal. The whole time Kurt is terrified, though he is happy to note that Blaine is _very_ well-endowed (if you get what he means), but judging by Blaine's noises, Kurt's alright at this—no, _better_ than alright, even if he's sloppy and inexperienced. Kurt trails his tongue over the tip Blaine's erection, and Blaine's nearly sobbing in desire, bucking his hips forward wildly, pushing his member further and further into Kurt's mouth. Kurt struggles to keep up with Blaine's pace, but he starts sucking harder, his cheeks hollowed and his eyes closed as he relies on his senses and focuses on the sound of Blaine's meows.

 

“K-K-Kurt,” Blaine stammers, pulling on Kurt's hair and melting to Kurt's complete delight. He loves having this power over his boyfriend. “M-m-more, _please!”_

 

With a throaty moan, Blaine comes, his back arching. He sighs in relief, and then returns the favor to Kurt, palming his erection, and stroking along Kurt's length. Kurt comes following shortly after Blaine, both boys lay under Kurt's covers, panting hard and breathing heavily. 

 

Blaine looks over at Kurt under lidded eyes, heavy with desire. “Thank you.”

 

“I-I I love you,” Kurt whispers, kissing Blaine's nose.

 

Blaine doesn't reply, but from the light in his eyes and the droopy, lazy smile that drapes over his face—the first real smile Kurt has seen from him since Blaine's world fell apart. And hey, if giving Blaine a little more than kisses is what it takes to keep Blaine vibrant and happy, Kurt is _more_ than willing to comply.

 

“Umm...” comes a hesitant voice. Kurt and Blaine both start and look up from their spots in bed, Blaine's arm wrapped around Kurt's bare shoulders.

 

Finn stands in the doorway like a big, hulking giant. He flushes a shade of violent pink as his eyes nervously drift over the boxers and pants and shirts strewn around the floor. “I'm sorry—I-I should go. I was just coming to tell you that it was uh d-dinner time and uh...” he turns awkwardly, “I'm leaving.”

 

When they hear Finn's hurried footsteps thudding—no, he's _bolting_ —away, Blaine sniggers. His chortle turns into a giggle and then escalates to a guffaw, and then Blaine is laughing to the point where he's nearly crying. Kurt, who does not find the situation funny at all, stares at his boyfriend in wide-eyed horror and proceeds to slap him playfully across the chest.

 

“Blaine, you are _so_ immature—what if he tells my dad? Oh my God, oh my God, I am in so much trouble, I-”

 

Blaine silences him with a kiss and then looks at him, an amused expression still dancing in his eyes.

 

“Finn's not gonna say anything, Kurt.” Blaine looks thoughtfully upwards. “I wonder what he'd do if he caught us actually in the act.”

 

“That is _not_ happening,” Kurt hisses, to which Blaine begins laughing again.

 

At least _someone_ is amused by Kurt's utter humiliation and embarrassment. 

On the bright side, at least Blaine's laughing again.

+

At the dinner table, Blaine wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at Finn.

 

Finn hurriedly stands up, pushes his plate away, announces that he isn't really hungry, and makes a beeline to his room, where the entire family hears the door slamming.

 

A bemused Carole exclaims that this has always been Finn's favorite dinner and if there's something wrong with it, she encourages the boys to tell her and a concerned Burt asks Kurt if anything strange happened at school that is causing Finn's odd behavior and Carole, of _course_ your food is delicious.

 

Kurt says he knows of no such thing. He then proceeds to kick his terribly behaved boyfriend under the kitchen table.

 

Blaine restrains himself from crying out and politely asks Carole to pass the dressing.

+

It's amazing how comfortable Kurt has become with Blaine in his house. He can't imagine a time before going downstairs in the morning to not see Blaine sitting there, calmly eating a bowl of Froot Loops or Cinnamon Toast Crunch (honest to God, the boy has the same appetite and metabolism as _Finn!_ ), while Kurt pulls out oatmeal or some variety of Kashi cereal (watching his figure is a must—boyfriend or not). Ever since the escapade, Finn seems a bit more wary of them and usually tries to sit as far away from them as possible, but usually he joins them at the breakfast table too. Burt and Carole slide in and will ask them how their week was and they always try to include Blaine. And it seems perfect, the three boys and Kurt's parents and a stack of pancakes as tall as a mountain doused with syrup (which Finn, Blaine, and Burt make good work of) freshly made by Carole. Conversation flows as easily with Blaine there as it had when Blaine wasn't there, but Kurt can't remember a time when Blaine wasn't living at his house.

 

 

It's perfect, really. It's not just Kurt, either. His whole family (with maybe the exception of Finn), is used to having Blaine there—even growing to accept him as a constant. Carole will come back from the grocery store and tell Blaine to unload the car, or Burt will ask Blaine to help him out in the shop for a little. And Kurt—well Kurt doesn't mind spending all of his time with Blaine. During the week, he spends time with his friends from McKinley—goes shopping with Mercedes and Tina—and _sometimes_ even Rachel, and during the weekend, he curls up on the couch with Blaine and watches _Project Runway_ or they humor Finn and watch _South Park._

 

Yes, Kurt is happy, and he could go on living like this forever... well at least until he's done with high school. He loves Blaine, Blaine loves him, and everything is good. Kurt thinks he's finally found happiness.

 

Kurt has never believed in perfection or true utter bliss. But with Blaine, he thinks there's a good chance that he's found it. He hasn't found anybody who makes him happier, who genuinely cares about his feelings—who gave up his _parents, everything_ for the one he loves. Blaine is sweet and intelligent, and together, Blaine and Kurt are as damn close to perfect as you can get—at least that's what Kurt thinks.

 

Kurt is wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

It happens one day, as Blaine and Kurt are watching _Mean Girls_ with Finn, who has never seen it before (much to the horror of both Blaine and Kurt, who swear by the film and that “Lindsay Lohan actually had a good run before she became a coked-up wash-out.”). Finn looks mildly confused and laughs about twenty seconds after each punchline (“Ha! 98% chance it's raining, but it already _is!_ ”), and Kurt is nestled lazily in Blaine's arms, and smiling and content. A blanket drapes over both of them, and Kurt absentmindedly plays footsie with his boyfriend, to Blaine's pure delight.

There's a knock at the door, and Finn and Kurt rock-paper-scissors over who will answer it. Finn loses miserably (Kurt has realized that Finn only ever uses rock), but he whines insufferably about how he _really_ wants to finish the movie _especially_ since Kurt and Blaine says he should, and how he _swears_ he'll answer the door next time. Finn is being such a brat that Kurt gets up from the couch just to get Finn to stop whining.

The woman at the door is someone Kurt has never met, but knows right away. There's no mistaking those dark hazel eyes, the expressive eyebrows, the chocolate hair, the pale skin. He tenses immediately, preparing to close the door, when the woman puts her foot in the doorway. She looks at him, her eyes boring desperately into him, and pleads. “Don't.”

“What are you doing here?” Kurt knows that the voice that comes out of him isn't his own. It's cruel and clipped—something characteristic of his usual coolness, but the animosity of it surprises him. “What do you _want?_ I _will_ call the police,” he seethes quietly, knowing that Blaine and Kurt are in the family room, and he doesn't want to notify either one of them that there's something wrong in the slightest.

“Please,” the woman breathes pathetically, and Kurt almost slams the door right then, but restrains himself for Blaine's sake. Kurt may hate the woman in front of him with all of his heart, but she is still Blaine's mom and _Blaine_ loves her. It's so damning, but Blaine loves her—she is important to _Blaine,_ in spite of the fact that she failed to help him as her husband was beating her son, failed to help him when he cried coming home after being pummeled for being “different,” failed to help him when he finally worked up the bravery to tell her the _truth._

“Please,” Mrs. Anderson starts again, “I just want to see him...”

Her voice trails off and she's looking somewhere behind Kurt, and Kurt turns to see Blaine, his body slack against the wall, his face pale and drawn, his eyes open and raw and hurting. And with a whimper, Blaine pulls his hands over his face; his knees buckle and he collapses to the floor.

____________________________________________

Goddamn it.

Goddamn it.

It has taken Kurt the last two months to rebuild Blaine into a semblance of what he was before _it_ happened, and in two minutes Mrs. Anderson has destroyed it all.

What Kurt wanted to happen was to slam the door shut and call the police and send Finn outside with a bucket of pee balloons to chase the woman away. What Kurt wanted was his dad to be there, his gruff, stern dad, to tell her firmly to “get the hell off my property.” What Kurt wanted to do was coax Blaine into his bed and kiss him all over and soothe him and watch _When Harry Met Sally_ like everything is okay. Kurt wanted to rewind back to the point where he and Finn were playing rock-paper-scissors because then he would make Finn go answer the door because even big, hulking Finn would have known how to deal with this better than Kurt.

What _had_ happened was that Kurt had rushed to Blaine's side immediately, but so did Mrs. Anderson. What _had_ happened was Blaine asking, “Why you are here?” and his mom saying simultaneously through choked sobs, “Baby, I've missed you.” And with a whimper—the vulnerable one that Kurt had only seen that night—Blaine curls up into his mom's embrace when Kurt is standing there thinking that all of this is so wrong.

Because it _is_ wrong! Mrs. Anderson has been a terrible mother and she doesn't deserve to be loved and appreciated in the way that Blaine loves her. (Kurt tries so hard to convince himself that he's upset because Mrs. Anderson is terrible and Blaine deserves better—like him—not because he wants to be Blaine's knight again). 

And now, in kind of a sick repeated sequence, Finn, Kurt, and Blaine are sitting on the couch as Burt and Carole have a not-so-quiet chat in the kitchen. Kurt is awash with deja vu as this scene he already knows plays out again. Again, Blaine shudders with every escalating shout, and Kurt rubs his back and kisses his temples, and Finn looks at the floor.

“You think I'm going to let him go home with you after what you did-”

“It wasn't me-”

“You're damn right it wasn't you! You didn't do anything-”

“How could you-”

“Why on earth didn't you say anything-”

“I was scared-”

“He is your _child_. You are a poor excuse at a mother-”

“He's my son! You have no right to this-”

“He was being abused-”

“I can still call-”

Blaine's expression is one of stark misery, and Kurt soothes him. “Blaine, let's go.” Finn is nodding in agreement, and Kurt's heart is wrenching, and Blaine nods. Blaine nods as his eyes spike with tears and his face is awash with anxiety, as Kurt grabs his hand and starts leading him to his room. Blaine stumbles and falls and curls up on the floor, shaking with emotion, and Kurt is trying to help him up, and before he knows it, Finn has picked up Blaine like he's nothing more than a small child.

Thank God for Finn, Kurt is thinking, as he watches Blaine shudder in Finn's arms. Finn's face is one set with utter resolve and determination, and he follows Kurt to his room and sets Blaine down on his bed.

Blaine's face is blank—he doesn't look the least bit embarrassed about being carried by Finn—and though Kurt is happy about this, he's a bit concerned. Blaine has been so worried about making himself seem in control lately, that Kurt wants some semblance that he's okay.

But Blaine doesn't say anything, he just weeds his fingers together and wrings his hands and looks down at the floor, and Kurt sits down on the bed next to him. Finn is pacing Kurt's room like a madman as if he's trying to figure out what he can do or where he can go, and finally with a sigh, plops down on the floor and flips open his phone and tries to pretend he's texting Rachel. Kurt wishes he would leave, but he knows Finn doesn't want to walk past the kitchen where all the screaming is happening and Blaine doesn't seem bothered by Finn's presence, so Kurt gently squeezes Blaine's hands as Blaine tries not to cry.

____________________________________________

The door opens and Kurt's heart jumps in anxiety. Standing in the doorway are his dad and Carole and _her_. Burt's expression is one of blunt seriousness and Carole is wringing her hands in a way similar to Blaine, and _she... she_ walks over to Blaine and hugs him. She kisses his forehead and runs her hands over his shoulders.

Barely above a whisper, Mrs. Anderson looks down at her son. “Blaine, sweetie, it's time to come home.”

____________________________________________

Kurt is being damned selfish.

He knows this and he will admit it, but that doesn't stop him from being angry and resentful all the same.

He plays the scene over and over again in his head. Blaine, shaking hands with Burt and thanking him so much for everything the past two months. Blaine, hugging a crying Carole, who kisses the top of his forehead and tells him “don't be a stranger.” Blaine, who Finn lifts off the ground in a bear hug, who Finn tells, “I kind of liked having you here.”

Blaine, who kisses Kurt in front of everyone and tells him that he'll see him soon.

He knows that Blaine wanted to go home more than anything and he knows that Blaine will call if anything bad happens and he knows that Blaine's parents are trying to change, but Kurt wants Blaine back. He wants to have Blaine at the dinner table, wiggling his expressive eyebrows as he tells the Hudson-Hummels about the Warblers' latest escapades, he wants to hear Blaine talking sports with his father, he wants to hear Blaine's too-loud chuckle when Finn tells a joke that isn't funny (but everybody laughs anyways to make him feel better). He misses having Blaine help him with his Marc Jacobs collages and helping him choose out what to wear for the day.

And he misses it most at night. He misses crawling out to Blaine's cot to curl up next to him, or having Blaine sneak into his bedroom. He misses curling up in the familiar curve of Blaine's body and feeling Blaine's warm breaths on the back of his neck. He misses the kisses, misses the looks of utter adoration, the sleepy “Good nights” and “I love yous.”

Kurt misses Blaine so much it hurts.

He knows that he still sees Blaine on the weekends and Blaine still comes to McKinley after school and sometimes takes Kurt out to lunch, but it's so different from having Blaine in his house, physical and real all the time.

Kurt is no stranger to loss. He lost his mother when he was eight, and he remembers (and still feels) the dull aching in his heart when he realizes how much he misses her. Losing Blaine is not anywhere as bad, but not really better either. It's _different._

No, Blaine isn't dead (thank God), and Blaine isn't hurt or in the hospital. Things could be so much worse, but Kurt never realized how integral having Blaine was in his every day life is... until Blaine is gone.

Kurt knows he's being a terrible boyfriend. He's not happy that things are working out better between Blaine and his parents. He's not happy Blaine is home.

He just wants Blaine back.

And the damning thought that keeps creeping up in the back of his mind—that Blaine chose _them_ over him—won't leave him alone.

Kurt really is selfish.

____________________________________________

Kurt should have suspected something when he woke up and it was raining like the day Blaine showed up on his doorstep. He should have known that something bad was going to happen, that dark clouds and rainstorms are just a foreshadowing of something imminently terrible.

But Kurt doesn't suspect the slightest thing, and he goes into the kitchen and carefully make himself a bowl of oatmeal. Everybody else in the Hudson-Hummel household is missing—Carole and Burt have gone out for a romantic couples' brunch and Finn is sleeping, as usual.

And that's when he gets the call.

____________________________________________

Minutes later, Kurt is sitting and cradling his bowl of oatmeal and nursing a cup of hot coffee. He can't breathe at all, a lump is forming in his throat, and he just feels numb. The coffee should be scalding—there's hot steam coming off of it in little, smoky clouds—but Kurt ignores this and takes a sip without blowing on it.

The coffee is cold.

Kurt doesn't know if the coldness is from the drink or from the weather or from his insides where everything has turned to cold ice and is collapsing inside of him. The tears crawl down his face slowly, and he takes another sip of the burning coffee, wondering if it will always taste this cold.

____________________________________________

This is how Finn finds him, sitting pathetically at the kitchen table. The first thing that tips Finn off is that Kurt is wearing sweatpants and a massive sweatshirt (that might be Finn's, Finn's not sure). At first he thinks that Kurt has just decided to put “chic and fashionable” on hold for the day, and is about to ask his stepbrother about it, when his eyes stop on Kurt's red, miserable face.

Kurt has never cried prettily. His tears don't come down in delicate rivulets, they make his face blotchy and sickly looking. His lips are pursed so tight they're almost a line, and his eyes are wells of anguish. He sits there, his fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee.

“Kurt?” Finn asks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He sits down in the chair next to his stepbrother. “Kurt, what's wrong man?”

When Kurt doesn't answer, Finn starts pulling accusations out of the air. “Was it Karofsky or Azimio? I will kick their asses, I swear to God. Kurt, tell me who hurt you-”

“Can we _please_ just let this go?” Kurt speaks, and his voice is hoarse with distress and Finn can barely hear him. Kurt feels a numbness crawling from his insides out and he prays that the feeling will eventually reach his heart because then it will start hurting so damn much.

“Kurt, man, what can I do?” Kurt can feel Finn's big hands on his shoulders—his brother with a heart of gold, his brother who has sworn that he'll protect Kurt from now on—

—but how the hell is Finn supposed to protect Kurt from _this?_

With a sob, Kurt turns to Finn and buries his face in Finn's shirt, hoping that he will suffocate so that he doesn't have to _feel_ anymore. Kurt feels Finn's fingers clench protectively around his shoulders as he hugs him, and he can imagine Finn's expression of utter confusion, but thank God for Finn—Finn doesn't say anything. Finn sits there and hugs Kurt and lets him cry. Kurt can feel the mucus from his nose dripping onto Finn's cotton t-shirt, he can feel his eyes burning as more tears come, he can feel his body shaking in Finn's solid grasp.

Kurt thinks back to the previous year where he would have sold his soul to have Finn hold him like this, but this isn't what he wants anymore and he would do anything to have Finn be _him._

Finn is shushing him awkwardly like a worried mother and Kurt clings onto his shirt, hoping the numbness will come back and give his heart some rest. Kurt had never wanted a brother, but he is so grateful for Finn.

“H-his parents are— _were_ —getting divorced,” Kurt says, his head still nestled in the crook of Finn's shoulder. He shudders, and Finn holds onto him harder. Kurt sniffles, new tears stabbing his eyes. “H-he thinks that...” his voice shakes and he wills himself to continue, “if he is d-d-different, if he's _straight_ ,” Kurt spits out the word with disgust, his voice laced with misery, “things will c-c-change and he can s-save his parents' m-marriage.”

Kurt pauses, a new onslaught of tears burning his eyes, and allows Finn to marinate in the new information.

“God Kurt, I'm sorry,” Finn says, tightening his hold on Kurt, “God Kurt, that's terrible.”

“He says we c-can't be anymore, t-there can't be a-anymore _us._ ” Kurt's voice cracks on the last word, arching onto a higher note, and the coldness swallows him.

He knows that Finn can't fix this, but he's grateful when Finn just sits there and lets him cry. He doesn't know how long he cries for, but he knows that Finn doesn't leave.


	4. Chapter 4

Kurt never knew that it was possible for things as badly as they had when he lost his mom. Well, some subconscious part of him knew it was possible, but he never thought it would happen to _him_ again. He goes to school and sits through classes, but he never knows what has been covered. He attends Glee Club practices and sings, but Mr. Schue calls him out several times for lacking depth. He loafs around his house until his father tries to get him to help out with the cars or Carole asks him to help her prep dinner, or Finn asks him for help on PreCalculus. He shops with Mercedes, but he picks up clothes listlessly, the expensive materials no longer meaningful or important to him. Kurt always agrees, but his heart is never really in it.

Life without Blaine feels like no life at all.

Kurt knows he's being immature and he's being stupid because he's seventeen and he has the rest of his life to live, but the very unfairness of getting Blaine—someone so _perfect_ —and then _losing_ him is more than he can bear. A huge part of him always thought that he and Blaine would be together forever, and he knows he's being childish and stupid, but he wants Blaine back so badly.

He never told anybody other than Finn about the break-up but either Finn told everyone or they were just smart enough to figure it out. Burt doesn't say anything, but claps a large, comforting hand on Kurt's shoulder, his eyes downcast and tired-looking. Carole circles around Kurt like she's walking on eggshells, and Finn asks him regularly if he needs anything or if he needs to talk.

School is even more awkward. Mercedes gives him a huge, supportive hug when he goes to school, the expression in her eyes speaking volumes when his gaze meets hers. Kurt notices there's a greater sensitivity among his friends concerning their relationships—Finn and Rachel break their adoring gazes at each other when Kurt walks into the room, Mike and Tina exchange guilty looks as though they're responsible for the fact that Kurt is single when they are still crazily in love with each other, even Puck and Lauren manage to keep quiet (and their hands off of each other) for Kurt's sake.

But Kurt doesn't want his friends to have to change for him. Sure, it sucks that he's newly single, but he can get through this, right? Brittany's single and she's okay... wait, she sleeps with everyone and everything, so scratch that. Quinn is single and she's... wait, she's been following boys around and stooping to even _freshmen_ , begging someone to ask her out, so she's definitely _not_ fine. Artie is single and... hopelessly following Brittany around. Mr. Schue is...

Okay, perhaps the Glee Club isn't the best example, since everyone is either with someone or ridiculously unhappy and dissatisfied with life, but this doesn't need to be Kurt. Kurt is _fine_ without a boyfriend, thank you very much, but Kurt knows it's not the truth at all.

Kurt is fine without a boyfriend, but he's not fine without Blaine.

He misses the late night conversations, he misses having someone to confide in (other than Mercedes), he misses having a _boy_ he can call his best friend (because although Finn is a great brother, sometimes he's incapable of talking about the latest Marc Jacobs collection and about what it's like to be a gay teenager in a conservative society). He misses Blaine's expressive eyebrows, his hearty laugh, his antics, his voice. Even before Kurt was dating Blaine, Blaine was his support, Blaine offered courage and advice and wisdom, and without him, Kurt feels lost.

He doesn't know who he is without Blaine. Blaine has been such an integral, pivotal part of his life that Blaine has left a void in his heart that no one can replace. Blaine has battered a hole through him, leaving him raw and bleeding, and Kurt doesn't know how to fix this.

___________________________________________

“Kurt, this has gone on long enough.”

Kurt is sitting miserably in the library, trying desperately to concentrate on _The Heart of Darkness_ , when a voice breaks through his thoughts. He turns numbly, his eyes barely registering Mercedes standing above him, arms crossed.

“Sweetheart, you're torturing yourself over this,” Mercedes says, her eyes softening when she takes in Kurt's broken, pale-faced expression. “This is _Blaine's_ fault—you did nothing wrong here. He's too stupid to see how good you are for him and he's just _scared,_ so until he's smart enough to get his head out of his ass, you need to pick yourself up and put yourself together.”

Kurt stares at her, his expression unwavering, but his lip trembling slightly. He wills himself not to cry.

“Kurt, you gotta get yourself back out there. You don't need _him,_ ” Mercedes tells him gently, her confidence radiating through her voice. “Come on.” She holds out her firm, warm hand and gives him a toothy smile. “We're getting you out of here.”

Kurt pauses, staring hard at her, but with a sigh of exhaustion, he gives in. He takes her hand.

___________________________________________

Mercedes takes Kurt to the Lima Bean, where they meet Mike and Tina. Mike and Tina look pretty happy to see him—Mike gives him an easy, casual smile and Tina hugs him nearly to death exclaiming how it's been so long since she's hung out with Kurt outside of school, and for a second, Kurt doesn't think about Blaine. But when he sees Tina slip her hand easily into Mike's and Mike squeeze hers and give her an eskimo kiss in return, it feels like his heart is being wrenched and he wills himself not to cry while waiting in line to get coffee. 

Mike and Tina order first and go off to get them a table. Kurt and Mercedes are in line, and once they've ordered, Mike rushes back to them line and says, rather breathlessly, “It'd be nice to, you know, get coffee and go eat somewhere else, huh? Outside, maybe? What do you say?”

There's something off about the look in his eyes and the guilty tilt of his head, and the fact that Mike Chang is speaking at all (because don't get him wrong, Mike is a _really_ nice guy, but he doesn't say much), and suspicions flutter in Kurt's stomach.

“I'd like to eat here,” Kurt says, his voice clipped with finality, and he watches the alarm jump into Mike's brown eyes. Mike's eyebrows raise high into his forehead, and his mouth gapes open slightly and Kurt doesn't miss the invisible _no_ signal he sends to Mercedes.

Mercedes is grabbing his arm, and telling him, “Come on boo, we can go somewhere else,” but Kurt shakes her off and starts walking towards the tables and chairs in the Lima Bean.

Kurt sees Tina first—Tina, who is waving frantically at Mike and Mercedes to pull Kurt back. She is standing, blocking Kurt's view of something behind her, but Kurt roughly pushes Tina out of the way (ignoring Mike's cry of protest), but Kurt doesn't care because then he sees...

_them._

And it's like he's been punched hard in the stomach. Kurt feels his throat close up and his chest constrict, and he turns around without a sound. Kurt pushes past Mercedes, Mike, and Tina, trying to make sure he doesn't crumple like a dead leaf.

The click of the door sounds behind him as he steps out of the Lima Bean and onto the sidewalk, walking numbly to his car. The keys in the ignition, the start of the engine. Kurt leaves.

___________________________________________

Kurt replays the image of Blaine— _his_ Blaine—with his tongue down some blonde girl's throat, his hand cupped around her ass. Blaine, with his eyes closed and dark lashes prominent against his creamy skin. Blaine, his eyebrows raised and arched, Blaine, his pink lips pressed against the lips of some _girl's_ —lips that aren't _Kurt's_.

He's gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles are white and with a distressed noise in his throat, he pulls over to the side of the road, trying hard not to remember that the last time he sat in his car like this was with Blaine, when Blaine was talking about his relationship with his father... before Kurt's life went to hell.

Kurt's sobbing now, trying so hard to erase the image of Blaine's slender fingers tangled through the girl's long, golden hair, trying to forget the breathy moans of Blaine under the girl, the moans that Kurt thought only Blaine only made when he was with _him_

—Kurt and tries to forget the way he felt when he was in the girl's place.

___________________________________________

When Kurt gets home, he marches straight to his room, ignoring his father's and Carole's greetings. He reaches under his bed and pulls out a box—a simple one with a black and white striped pattern—and opens it. And it's _them_.

Kurt has never told anybody about his Collection-of-Cute-Things-from-Blaine-Anderson because a) he would basically die of embarrassment if Puck or his dad (or _Blaine_ ) ever found out and because b) he feels like a teenage girl and wants to hoard his secrets and because c) this is his private collection, his private stash of everything _Blaine_ of everything with him and Blaine, with everything that is— _was_ —them.

He empties it out onto the floor, sifting through the old mementos. Kurt's Dalton's Academy pin, a note written by Wes that says, “ _Dear Kurt, Please stop staring adoringly into Blaine's eyes because I will probably puke if Blaine professes his endearment and undying love for you one more time_ ,” Blaine's old scarf that he lent to Kurt one time, a collection of notes that Blaine left over the course of their relationship, their picture from McKinley's prom, an old polaroid picture that Tina snapped of them at a party...

With a disgusted noise in his throat, Kurt throws all of the tidbits haphazardly back into the box and empties all of it into his trashcan. When that doesn't feel like enough, he takes his trashcan outside. His heart beating in his ears, he walks numbly and forcefully throws everything in his trashcan into the dumpster down the street.

There.

Kurt Hummel is _over_ this.

Kurt Hummel was fine without Blaine Anderson once, and he will be _fine_ now. He doesn't _need_ Blaine. Blaine can have that loose, clingy blonde whore, and Kurt will succeed, go further than cowardly, closeted Blaine, and find someone _better._

___________________________________________

There's a new student at McKinley. The hype is that he's just moved in from California, and that he can _surf_ and he's met a laundry list of celebrities. Rumors fly around that the California kid lives in a _mansion_ and he's just in Lima because his family decided to try a more modest environment, and his father got a job offer in Lima where he'll make quadruple the amount of money that he made in California, so they'll be even _richer_. The new kid was in a band at his old school, and the new kid is oh, so _hot_ and tan and muscular and every girl is lining up to be with him.

Kurt listens to the Glee girls talk mindlessly, their words drifting over him and failing to affect him. Santana has an idea that, _Forget Karofsky, I'm gonna_ bang _him,_ and Brittany says that she talked to him and he smells good. Even Rachel wants to talk to the new kid, to see if he can maybe put in a good word for her to Celine Dion, and the jocks want the new kid in their circle to boost their popularity points.

Through all of this, Kurt stays silent. He doesn't care about the new kid, he doesn't care about the fact that he's from California. Kurt has decided in his plan to prove that Kurt Hummel doesn't need Blaine Anderson, the first thing he needs to do is focus on himself. Forget about the rumors flying around McKinley, forget about the Glee Club drama, forget about the bullies and the homophobia—focus on classes, fashion, and Glee, focus on doing what he loves, and focus on himself for once.

That's probably why Kurt doesn't meet the new McKinley celebrity until he's cleaning a slushy out of his eyes one day in the bathroom. He knows that Finn, Mike, Sam, and Puck are off beating the crap out of Azimio for doing it, and Kurt loves them for protecting him, but he's a bit tired of people walking around him like he's going to break, and he can take care of himself. 

Sighing, he slips the blue crystals and corn syrup out of his hair, and wipes his face with some moist towelettes he has stored in his bag. The sweet, cold taste of slurpee is still in his mouth, and his face is numb, but he's got this.

And there's a concerned gasp from next to him. “Are you okay?”

Kurt turns and _oh my God,_ why hasn't he ever seen this kid before?

The boy with the bronzed body of a Greek god, tanned skin, hazel eyes flecked with gold, and a shock of thick, coppery hair. His lips are full and his cheekbones are high and marked with several freckles, and his t-shirt clings to him in all the right places.

“I... uh...” stammers Kurt, nervously.

The boy seems even more antsy than Kurt as he reaches behind him and hands Kurt some paper towels. Kurt notices that his hands are slightly trembling. 

“What happened?” he asks, his voice full of genuine care. “Are you alright?”

“I'm fine but thank you,” Kurt says, accepting the towels even though he has his towelettes which work so much better. “Slurpee Wars, I presume you haven't heard of them yet? You're the new kid, right?”

“Yeah,” the boy gives Kurt a full smile, his teeth brilliantly white. “I'm Hunter. Hunter Birdell.” He extends his hand, without the slightest flicker of hate or fear, and Kurt is so surprised that he nearly drops all of the paper towels he's holding.

“Kurt,” Kurt answers, his hand closing around the boy's firmly. “Kurt Hummel.”

“It's nice to meet you,” Hunter gives him a gentle, lopsided grin that tugs up at the corner of his mouth. His eyebrows arch and his eyes shine. “I'll see you around, Kurt Hummel.”

And the first time since the breakup with Blaine, Kurt smiles.

___________________________________________

Kurt knows something that the other McKinley kids don't.

The new kid?

That's right, he's _gay._

___________________________________________

Kurt finds himself spending more and more time with Hunter. The funny thing is that though Hunter spends time with the kid who straddles the bottom of McKinley's social pyramid, he doesn't lose his charm or his popularity. Kurt attributes this to the fact that he's from California and has a radiating, starlike glamour—something no other person at McKinley can even claim to have (not even Rachel Berry), and since nobody in Lima has anything on Hunter, everybody leaves him alone (and still wants to be his friend, ever since he let it drop that he hung out with Megan Fox one weekend).

Kurt is pretty sure that his intuition was right. He knows that he should be cautious because he read all of Sam's signs wrong (even though Sam's hair begged otherwise, Kurt has decided that Sam's as straight as an arrow), but he's pretty sure that Hunter swings for his team.

When Kurt invites Hunter over for the first time, Hunter is well-spoken, though slightly reserved. Finn begins hurling questions about California and about the beach and if the water is salty and if he knows how to surf, until Kurt grabs an overwhelmed, stammering Hunter by the hand and pulls him to his room. They sit and talk lazily, and Kurt finds out that Hunter is the youngest of four (two older sisters and one older brother), that he loves dogs, that he surfs (but is nowhere as good as the kids at McKinley say), that he wants to be a pediatrician because he likes working with kids, that his favorite flavor of ice cream is mint chocolate chip, that he doesn't know how he really feels about Lima so far but that he's met a lot of cool people and the coolest one so far has been Kurt.

The last revelation leaves Kurt flushing scarlet and a big, unsettling feeling in his stomach, but it's not a bad one at all.

He thinks he could get to like Hunter Birdell.

___________________________________________

The next week, Hunter asks Kurt if he'd like to check out the latest horror flick at the movie theater. Kurt hesitates for a moment, remembering the last cheesy, romantic movie that he'd seen with Blaine, when Blaine ended up with popcorn kernels in his thick, chocolate hair and he recalls the taste of popcorn butter on Blaine's lips, but that's all it takes for him to block the memories out of his mind and accept Hunter's offer.

Hunter smiles brightly and hugs Kurt quickly, before flushing pink himself and scrambling off to class.

Kurt leans against the lockers, his heart hammering, and for the first time in awhile, he's excited.

___________________________________________

The first time they hold hands is in the dark black corner of the movie theater.

The movie is God-awful and disgusting and horrifying and vivid all at the same time, and Kurt scoffs at the pictures. He's never been one for horror movies, but Hunter seems to be. With each suspenseful build-up, Hunter's eyes screw close and he latches his hand onto Kurt's, and as Kurt squeezes his hand in return, he thinks that he might be able to get used to this.

___________________________________________

The first kiss happens in Hunter's Bentley on the drive back to Kurt's house from the mall.

Kurt is telling Hunter about Blaine, and though he's being unfair and cruel in burdening Hunter with the dramatic story of his last break-up, Hunter listens, attentive and wide-eyed through it all, his eyes softening with unspoken sympathy.

“—And he just decided that he had to save his parents' fucked up marriage, and the sacrifice was me, I suppose. And the next week I see him in the Lima Bean, making out with some... _girl,_ ” Kurt spits the word out like it's dirty, and Hunter laughs lightly, “and it... I don't know, I just decided that I didn't _need_ him anymore.”

There's silence, but then Hunter speaks quietly. “It sounds like he's just scared. He obviously was very important to you, and I know from my experience coming out to my parents and my friends, I was scared shitless—as you probably were,” ( _Oh,_ Kurt thinks, _so there's the admission_ ), “but he was good for you, Kurt, at least for how long it lasted. I'm sorry he didn't understand how special you were,” and then there's a tanned hand over Kurt's, and golden-hazel eyes staring into his eyes, and then, _oh,_ soft lips pressed against his, and fingers stroking his hair.

Kurt closes his eyes, and doesn't pull away. He deepens the kiss, thinking this may be _exactly_ what he needs.


	5. Chapter 5

When Kurt breaks the news to his family that Hunter's asked him to be his boyfriend, there's an uncomfortable silence. The pasta on Burt's fork drops onto his plate, Carole looks at him, her eyes wide, and Finn's eyebrows arch high into his forehead in a look of confusion.

It's only when Kurt makes an audible “ahem” in his throat that his family starts to react. Carole smiles with him, her eyes crinkling up at the corners, and says, “That's so great to hear, Kurt!” and Finn looks at Kurt and can only say, “Wait, Hunter's _gay_?” until his mom smacks him in the arm. It's Burt who stays quiet and silently stabs his tortellini, his expression hardening and his eyes serious.

Finn and Carole (okay, mainly Carole) really try to be nice and ask Kurt questions about Hunter, but everyone is aware of the awkwardness. Carole's eyes don't look as happy as the time Kurt told her about Blaine and Finn is grimacing in a fake smile like he's constipated. Burt says nothing the entire meal, only breaking his silence to ask Carole to pass the salt.

It's later, when Kurt is lying in bed, texting Mercedes, that there's a knock at his door and he looks up to see his dad. Burt stands awkwardly in the doorway, his eyes hard but kind, and his mouth drawn tight in a straight line.

“Son, can I come in?” he asks in a gravelly voice, and Kurt sits up straight and nods. 

“Yes, of course, Dad.”

Kurt can tell from his dad's body language that he's tired and he wonders what's up. Burt sits down on Kurt's bed with him. He takes off his cap and folds it in his hands, and looks at his son with piercing green eyes.

“Kurt,” he begins, “are you sure about this Hunter guy?”

When Kurt opens his mouth to object, his dad waves him off, signing that he wants to continue.

“Kurt, don't get me wrong. I am _happy_ for you, happy that you've been able to move past Blaine, because God knows that you were beating yourself up about something that wasn't your fault. But son, you're getting yourself into another relationship so quickly. I know you say that you're old enough to handle yourself and I know you think you know what you want, but shouldn't you take some time for yourself? Blaine, even though things didn't end well with him—son, he _cared_ about you. He was really important to you and you have so many good memories with him, and getting a new boyfriend might not be the best way to try and erase all those good memories.”

Kurt bristles defensively. Burt doesn't know half of the story, and he begins trying to formulate the words to tell his dad about _everything,_ about Blaine with the girl in the coffee shop, about the phone call, about how incredibly shitty Kurt's felt the last few weeks, but his confidence wavers and instead he retorts, “Dad, Hunter is a good, no _great_ boy. He's respectful and intelligent, and-”

“-and he doesn't have the least bit in common with you,” Burt calmly interrupts Kurt.

“That is not _true,_ ” Kurt bites back, his hands clenching angrily, but his answer doesn't even sound completely true to his own ears.

Burt sighs tiredly and runs his hand over his head. He puts a hand comfortingly on Kurt's shoulder and squeezes, and then gets up and leaves Kurt thinking about his father's words.

Kurt is glad his dad doesn't call him out on the wavering note in his answer.

________________________________________

Kurt spends the weekend trying to eradicate all memories of a fair, dark-haired boy with corny jokes, shining eyes, a pure voice, and expressive eyebrows, and fill his mind instead with thoughts of a coppery-haired, tan boy with a hitched smile.

________________________________________

After they've made it official, Hunter walks into McKinley proudly, his hand laced in Kurt's. Kurt smiles at the perplexed student body as they gape and stare at the couple, mouths wide open like goldfish. He imagines the thoughts that are rushing through their minds—mainly their shock that Hunter has turned out to be gay, and that some loser like Kurt has managed to snatch him.

It's only about three minutes after they've entered school. Kurt is sorting through his locker for school books while Hunter rests his head lazily on the back of Kurt's shoulder, his hands placed gently around Kurt's waist, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of Kurt's neck, when they're both met with the ice cold shock of a slurpee. It's a cherry slushy, and Kurt can feel the burning humiliation even through the freezing shards of ice. He wipes red slush miserably off of his face and flicks it to the floor, knowing that his Alexander McQueen get-up is completely destroyed and there's no way that his Burberry handbag will make a recovery. The jocks that have slushied them hi-five each other and walk away laughing, but Kurt is too preoccupied with the juice dripping out of his ear to throw a comeback at them.

It's mainly Hunter he's worried about.

The glossy-haired boy with bright eyes looks at Kurt in complete shock. Most of the ice was thrusted down the back of his shirt, and the red liquid is pooling in Hunter's pants and his shoes, and he is shivering (Kurt's not sure if it's from his utter embarrassment or the cold, but he's hoping that it's the latter).

“Here,” he says, extending a sticky, red hand to Hunter. Kurt is relieved when Hunter takes his hand, and follows him obediently into the bathroom.

Kurt ignores the artificial coloring in his ear as he gently wipes the corn syrup from Hunter's hair and face with a package of moist towelettes. He's trying desperately hard to forget that the last time he and Hunter were in the boys' bathroom together, it was Hunter who was helping Kurt out, and that by some cruel fate their roles have been reversed.

Through the cleaning, Hunter stays quiet, his eyes glued on the floor. He follows every one of Kurt's orders obediently, but his eyes are sad and sorrowful.

Kurt goes through about half a package of moist towelettes before he decides that's the best he can do. He wipes some of the syrup from his own face before it runs into his eye and then says softly, in a barely audible voice, “I'm sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Hunter asks. He's stopped shaking, and his hair is damp and sticky, but at least his skin is clean.

“For, you know...” Kurt trails off lamely, “you never would have gotten slurpeed if it hadn't been for me.”

And once that initial confession has forced its way out, it's like a dam has broken, and all of Kurt's insecurities come flooding out of him. “I understand completely, Hunter, if you don't want to be with me. I know that I'm a loser and you were— _are_ —not on the same social level, and I know I'm a little messed up and-”

He's surprised when he's interrupted by a gentle kiss, and fingers raking their way through his matted, syrupy hair. The lips come off of his, and he finds himself staring right into Hunter's hazel eyes.

“I'm _proud_ to be with you, Kurt Hummel, and don't you forget it,” is the simple statement, and as Kurt stands in shock, his fingers reaching up to touch his lips where Hunter's have just been, Hunter busies himself pulling out some towelettes and wiping Kurt's face clean.

Kurt just stands there numbly, and wonders if there is a God after all and if his life is finally turning around.

________________________________________

They're at the Lima Bean one day after school, and Hunter's hand is intertwined with Kurt's. Both of the boys order, and Hunter shushes Kurt when he offers to pay. Instead, he plants a kiss right on Kurt, right in the middle of the line, and tells Kurt to go find a seat while he picks up their coffee and scones.

Kurt walks of, a bit dazedly, a smile dancing on his lips, and finds a small table with two empty seats. He sits down, feeling a bit lightheaded from the emotions and outright adoration that Hunter has for him.

Kurt hums happily to himself, his eyes closed, replaying Hunter's kiss in his head over and over again. He opens his eyes when he hears a rustle in front of him, expecting to see Hunter with a wide grin and a cornucopia of food.

But it's not Hunter.

“What do _you_ want?” Kurt spits, without taking any efforts to hide the animosity within his tone.

Blaine looks taken aback. He threads his fingers through his dark, chocolate-colored hair and there's anxiety in his eyes. His face is thin and drawn, and he's jumpy, looking back and forth over his shoulders periodically as if he's afraid Puck will jump out of nowhere and beat the shit out of him (which Puck really did promise Kurt he would do, so Blaine's concerns are not unfounded). Blaine's always been small (at least smaller than Kurt), but sitting there in the Lima Bean chair, his body hunched over, he looks almost pathetic.

Kurt is shocked at Blaine's appearance, but he masks his emotions. “What do you want?” His voice carries venom, and he raises one eyebrow, indicating that he is not happy with Blaine's company.

Blaine speaks then, his voice hoarse. “Who is _that_?” he points a shaking finger at Hunter, who is standing in the long line, waiting to pick up the order.

Kurt tries to ignore the injured tone in his voice because how _dare_ he? How _dare_ Blaine try to make Kurt feel sorry for him when he was the one who gave up on their relationship—on _them_ , when _he_ was the one who broke Kurt's heart, when _he_ was the one who decided to turn the tables and play nice Mr. Socially Acceptable Straight Boy for a change? Who the hell is Blaine to come to Kurt now and want sympathy?

“It's none of your business,” Kurt replies coldly, and Blaine's face furrows and his lip trembles. “But since you probably aren't going to leave me alone until I tell you, and since I know that you will nag Mercedes and Tina and all of my friends until you find out, he is a good fr—he is my friend. And my _boyfriend_ ,” Kurt stresses the word, wanting to make Blaine hurt, wanting to make Blaine feel the way Kurt felt when he saw Blaine with that blonde, stick-thin whore.

“I don't like him. I don't think you should date him,” Blaine says, a bit stubbornly, his voice laced with faint jealousy, and something in Kurt just _snaps._

He gets up, bristling angrily. “Who asked _you_ , Blaine? You don't know the slightest thing about him! What makes you think that I'm entitled to listen to your opinion? I didn't ask you to stop dating that STD-ridden whore! You lost your right to being in my life when you broke up with me! _You_ broke up with me! I was _happy_ with you, Blaine! And now I've found someone who cares about me, who _loves_ me, and who isn't afraid to be with me!” 

Kurt knows he's being immature and childish. He's screaming, but he doesn't care; he just needs to get all of his feelings out. It's all so damning, and his head is spinning, and he just wants Blaine to hurt as much as he has, he wants Blaine to be on this emotional rollercoaster that he's had to ride by himself for the past few weeks. “I _loved_ you Blaine, but obviously, you don't feel the same way, so why don't you just get the hell out of my life the way you asked me to get out of _yours._ ”

Kurt feels a comforting hand on his shoulder, and he turns abruptly, nearly knocking poor Hunter over. Hunter's holding their baked goods in a paper bag and precariously balancing their coffees in the same hand, and his free hand is still held out hesitantly to Kurt.

Kurt takes it, takes the hand of this new, sweet boy that is leading him into a new chapter of his life, and follows Hunter out of the Lima Bean. Tears spike his eyes and he swallows hard, his nose hot and dripping, as he focuses on keeping the tears from falling and pushes himself into Hunter's warm, comforting embrace. He focuses on trying to erase the image of a lost Blaine, sitting back in the Lima Bean, hot tears trailing in rivulets from his soulful eyes as he stares blankly after Kurt's retreating form.

________________________________________

“Kurt?” It's Finn, and he is hesitant as he stands in Kurt's doorway. He slips his hands nervously over each other and bites his lip. He looks relieved to see that Kurt is in his room alone and there is no Blaine—wait, no _Hunter_ —and that (thank God) Kurt is fully clothed.

“Yes, Finn?” Kurt looks up from where he's tacking a picture of Lady Gaga to a poster board.

Finn looks at his feet and huffs a bit nervously. He digs his hands deep into his pockets before continuing. “Blaine called.”

Kurt opens his mouth to reply, but Finn continues, barreling on.

“I told him to fuck off.” Finn raises his gaze from the floor to meet Kurt's eyes, searching for approval. It takes some effort but Kurt smiles.

“Thanks, Finn.”

________________________________________

Kurt likes Hunter a lot. What isn't there to like?

Hunter is kind, courteous. He opens the door for Kurt when Kurt is getting into his car, takes him to and from school in his gorgeous Bentley, takes Kurt on small, weekly dates. Hunter is gentle with him; he holds Kurt's hand. He doesn't mind kissing Kurt in public (and in fact _loves_ to flaunt Kurt off to anyone who will listen), and he gets along with Kurt's friends. He listens, enthralled, to Kurt's performances inside and out of Glee, and is sensitive about Kurt's feelings.

There is nothing wrong with their relationship. This is the relationship that people search lifetimes for, and many people never find. This is a perfect, glorious relationship straight out of fairy tales.

Except there's one huge problem.

Kurt cannot stop comparing every single little thing Hunter does and says to every single little thing Blaine did and said.

For example, Hunter will hold his hand protectively and affectionately in the Lima Bean and patiently wait for Kurt to order before he orders himself and then pays. Though Kurt appreciates Hunter's gesture—he does, _really_ —he can't help remembering the way Blaine always impulsively ordered for him (and always got Kurt's lattes just right). When Hunter takes Kurt out, dressed in a pair of nice, faded jeans and a t-shirt that clings to his muscled chest just right, Kurt always thinks of Blaine, who always dressed in a nice, button up shirt (sometimes with a tie) or a chic cardigan and dark skinny jeans that showed how much he cared. When Hunter texts Kurt _good night :)_ Kurt can't help but think about how Blaine always included some sort of inside joke, or _sweetheart_ or _baby_ or _honey_ or _I love you_.

And around Hunter, Mercedes and Tina seemed reserved, quieter. There's not the natural ease that there was with Blaine, where all of them could poke fun at him and punch him lightly and spill embarrassing stories about Kurt (and believe it or not, Kurt even misses _that_ ). And sure, Finn thinks Hunter is cool and what-not, but Hunter isn't there to patiently guide Finn through every math question and answer every one of Finn's stupid questions about _Hamlet_ in the way Blaine never failed to do so.

When Kurt is kissing Hunter, sometimes he pictures chocolate, carefree curls rather than coppery tufts, and pale, fair skin rather than the tan skin under his fingers. He imagines those hazel golden eyes replaced by Blaine's simply hazel ones framed with dark lashes, staring at him adoration.

And he misses Blaine's voice. Oh, how he misses Blaine's voice, the pure, raw talent that sprang from Blaine's throat; the way Blaine twirled and swirled around like he was gliding effortlessly, the spring in his step when he got excited. He misses the high notes that Blaine reaches with ease, the excitement that shines in his eyes when he performs.

Kurt hates himself for this; he knows it's not fair to Hunter. Every time Hunter kisses him or cuddles with him, Kurt is overwhelmed by a crashing wave of guilt, but when he yells at himself to stop, he finds that he can't control his wandering mind.

Blaine is an asshole, Blaine did this to him, Blaine broke him.

Then why can't Kurt forget him?


	6. Chapter 6

It's when Kurt is cleaning out his locker that he pulls out a crumpled Polaroid from underneath his history textbook. He unfolds the picture, pressing it flat against his locker door, and stares, awash with emotion.

The picture is— _was_ —his favorite picture from his time with Blaine. In the photograph, Kurt and Blaine are sitting on a couch at Mercedes's house. Kurt is sitting in Blaine's lap, his head nestled back comfortably against Blaine's shoulder, his smile wide and bright, filling up his entire face. Blaine's head is craned as he plants a kiss on Kurt's cheek, his eyes pressed tightly closed, the curve from his smile pulling up the side of his lips, his eyebrow arched.

Kurt remembers Mercedes's squeal of delight upon taking the picture (“You two are probably the cutest freaking gay boys I will ever see”), remembers Tina's comment as she took a break from making lovey eyes with Mike (“When you guys adopt a baby from China, I'm going to be her godmother”), remembers Santana wink of amusement (“Get a room, you two”), remembers Finn smiling gently at him (probably relieved that Kurt no longer had the hots for Finn himself). He remembers Blaine's warm breath against his ear and his whispered, “God, I love you,” and how Kurt flushed pink with happiness and a sense of belonging. He remembers how Mercedes had handed him the Polaroid and how Blaine had stared at it, his eyes radiating absolute joy, and how he had briefly stroked the smiling picture Kurt's cheek before wrapping an arm around real Kurt's waist. He remembers how Blaine had grabbed his hand and forced Kurt to sings with him, loudly and ridiculously, in front of everyone.

He doesn't even realize he's crying until there's a trickle of wetness on his cheek, until he's blinking rapidly to keep the tears from bombarding him.

“Oh,” Kurt hears a light voice say, and he turns to see Hunter. Hunter, who looks at him, mouth agape, but eyes full of a new understanding that Kurt has never seen in him before. “It's him.”

Kurt doesn't register Hunter's words before he sees the teary film that mists over Hunter's eyes. Hunter's voice is hurt, and he wraps his arms protectively around himself, but he bravely stumbles onward. 

“I'm sorry, Kurt. I-I should've known... You're not ready for someone new; I shouldn't have pushed you. I just thought that maybe,” his voice cracks painfully onto a higher note, “that if I j-just gave you time, then m-maybe you'd... start to love me. But Kurt, it's _okay._ If you're okay with it, I... I'd still like to be friends.”

And then it hits. Kurt feels his throat close up, but he forces words out anyways.

“Wait, Hunter—wait, no. What do you mean?” There's a climbing desperation in his voice and he wants to stop sounding so weak and pathetic, but he can't help it. He finds himself forcing his hand onto Hunter's arm, grasping distraughtly.

“Kurt, I get it,” Hunter says, sounding defeated. He makes a motion to brush Kurt's arm off, but looking at Kurt's face, he drops his hand and lets Kurt continue holding on with a vice-like grip. He looks into Kurt's eyes, his bottom lip wobbling precariously, but he makes an effort to give Kurt a hint of his hitched smile. “I _know,_ Kurt. And Kurt, as I said, it's _okay_.”

“What? What do you know?” Kurt is blinking back tears, “Hunter, please-”

“You still love Blaine,” Hunter says, with an offhand shrug, but Kurt can see the blatant pity and pain scrawled all over his face. “And maybe someday you and I can,” he swallows hard, “h-have a chance at being together, or maybe I'm not the right person to help you through t-this, but,” Hunter swipes his hand across his eyes, a fast, brash motion, “but I still want to be your friend.”

Kurt's voice is escalating in alarm. “No, Hunter! I don't love Blaine! He's a jerk, he's an asshole—I hate-”

“-that he left you. That he broke your heart. That he hurt you. That he didn't fight for your relationship,” Hunter finishes for him, offering Kurt a tender smile. “But you don't hate _him._ And God, Kurt, I'd do anything, _anything_ , to be the one to fix—to _help_ —you, but I can't make you love me. You hate what he did to you, but you don't hate him. You still love him.”

And with that revelation, it's like Kurt has been hit by a train. He almost staggers from the weight of Hunter's words, and when he calms his breathing to a steady rate, he looks up at Hunter apologetically.

“It's... true,” he manages to get out, and he latches onto his now ex-boyfriend. He runs his hands through Hunter's hair and hugs him close, and whispers, “God, Hunter, I'm so sorry.”

“I just want you to be happy,” is the quiet murmur back, and Kurt closes his eyes and just breathes in his _friend's_ scent. His stomach doesn't do a somersault when Hunter walks by, his heart doesn't start beating faster when Hunter kisses him chastely, his cheeks don't flush with delight every time Hunter compliments him.

Those are the things that happen with Blaine.

Hunter is right.

__________________________________________________

And with that, Kurt is thrust back into the confusion he was in before. 

His friends and family are back to being hypersensitive around him, his grades are slipping because he can't focus in class, his sleep is disrupted with nightmares of Blaine breaking up with him, telling him he's not good enough, and Hunter standing in front of him, an accusing note in his voice and tears spilling from his eyes. He rarely sings in Glee, but mainly looks out, staring at nothing until Mercedes or Tina punches him in the arm.

He's isolating all of his friends. None of them want to be around him; it's as if he's a ticking time bomb and they're afraid that any day now, he'll blow up in their faces.

It takes Tina and Mike sitting at opposite ends of the practice room for Kurt to be shaken into reality. During Glee, Kurt finally notices that the club lacks its general brightness and enthusiasm—and as he looks around to understand why, he sees Tina sitting in a corner by Mercedes and Artie, sniffling as she brushes bright tears from her eyes, her mascara leaving dark streaks, and Mike sitting with Sam and Puck, looking bitterly at the floor like the world has ended. Mercedes is rubbing her hand in circles along Tina's back and throwing a nervous look at Sam, who returns it as he slaps Mike on the back in what is supposed to be a comforting gesture.

After Glee, Kurt clambers after Tina. “Tina, wait!” he says, as he grabs her shoulder, and Tina turns with a look of surprise and almost fear.

“What?” Tina asks, and her expression is one of genuine astonishment. Her makeup smears down her cheek and her lip is trembling precariously.

“Tina, what happened with you and Mike?” Kurt's words are coming out of his mouth in almost an uncontrollable stream, and he watches Tina's face collapse like a house of cards. She doesn't answer, but runs helter-skelter to the girl's bathroom, Mercedes hot on her trail.

“You don't know, do you?” comes a drawl from behind Kurt, and he looks to see Santana, standing by her locker, studying her reflection in her locker door mirror.

“Know what?” Kurt bites back sharply, alarm jumping into his voice. 

“Lady Goth and Changster have been bitching at each other all week,” Santana says slowly, applying her lipstick. She slams the door and looks at him, flipping her hair. “It finally comes out that Changster's parents don't like Ruby Gloomy and think he can do better than her, and they want him to break up with her. And even though he didn't, he asked her to change to make his parents happy, she got royally pissed, and then now they're both walking around like the Apocalypse has come early.”

Santana sashays down the hallway after she's done, but turns back to look at a shell-shocked Kurt. “Hummel, this isn't really my place to say but since I'm a first-class bitch, I don't really give a damn and I'm gonna say it. Things with you and the hobbit didn't work out so hot, and neither did they with the California Gay, but you gotta see that things are moving on, with or without you. Start paying attention to your friends.” She swivels her head back around, and continues, her heeled boots clicking the floor.

Kurt stares numbly after her, his reply stuck in his throat because he knows. He knows, that just like Hunter, she's right.

__________________________________________________

Kurt spends his lunch period wiping tears and makeup off of Tina's face and consoling her, telling her that, no she's not a weirdo Goth freak, and no, she's not ugly in the slightest and that Mike is just being dumb and he'll come around. He talks with Tina on his phone for two hours at nighttime, until her sobs subside, trying to make her feel more whole.

It's kind of hard, really, when he feels like he's in a thousand pieces himself.

__________________________________________________

When Kurt gets his AP Calculus test back in class and a big, red C- is scrawled at the top, his breath catches in his throat. He's never gotten a grade this low on any of his assignments before. Kurt isn't the smartest student at McKinley, but he prides himself on his good grades—after all, his claim that the bullies will one day be washing his car can't be unfounded.

As he scans through the test to see which questions he's messed up—and there are many red marks to filter through—Kurt fumes.

At the end of Calculus, he stabs the sidewalk with each step running to his car. He's going to take care of things once and for all.

__________________________________________________

Kurt barges into Dalton's ivy-covered brick building, fury causing his heart to pound wildly in his chest. He walks angrily down the hall, his face flushed, so mad he's nearly seeing red.

He ignores some of the boys that open their dorm doors and look at him with recognition.

“Hey Kurt! How have you been?”

“Kurt, man! Long time no see!”

“Kurt! Where are you going?”

Kurt brushes past a thrilled Thad, ignoring the boy's attempt for a hug, and marches straight down to the room he's looking for. Without knocking, he kicks Blaine's door in, barely registering Wes and David staring up at him in shock from where they sit on Blaine's bed, before he nearly launches himself at Blaine, who's sitting in a chair by his desk.

“What the hell did I do wrong?” he starts, hating himself for the hysteria and the crack in his voice. He slaps Blaine hard across the face. “You owe me that, at least!” Kurt is screaming, crying, and he ignores all of the dorm doors opening and the Dalton students crowding the hallway and Blaine's doorway to get the best view. It's like a damn soap opera, but this isn't a fucking soap opera, it's Kurt's _life_ and everything is so screwed up because of _him._

“What the hell, Blaine? How do you go from 'I'm proud of who I am' to 'I'm a damn coward' the next day?” Kurt is spitting in fury; he knows his hair is disheveled, he knows his face is red and blotchy, but frankly, he doesn't give a damn. Blaine looks at him in shock, his hand cupped over the red mark left by Kurt's hand. “Why wasn't I worth fighting for? Who the hell do you think you are? Who gave you the power to make the decision about _us_?”

And then Kurt's shrieking, unintelligible sounds that turn into barbs of hate. Kurt calls Blaine an asshole, he calls Blaine a delusional, spineless coward who's afraid to come to terms of the truth, and it is absolutely _glorious_.

Until Blaine starts to fight back.

Because suddenly, Blaine is holding Kurt's arms to prevent Kurt from pummeling him with his fists, and his face is _right there_ up in Kurt's, red and angry, and he's yelling back, throwing his own insults and curses back at Kurt. Kurt has never seen Blaine lose his absolute composure—well, as far as his vocabulary is concerned—but then again, Blaine has been proving new things, lately, huh, like his sudden identity crisis?

And then there are hands on Kurt's back and he sees arms around Blaine's shoulders as Wes and David forcibly tear the boys off of one another. Wes has pulled Kurt off of Blaine and is calling Thad in for extra support, while Blaine has been thrown back into his chair by David.

Kurt glares at Blaine, his eyes fiery and hateful, and bristles. With as much dignity as he can muster, he shrugs Wes and Thad (who look absolutely petrified) off of him and walks impassively toward the door, ignoring the shocked glances and wide eyes of the other Dalton boys.

“I'm sorry.”

He hears a voice and turns to see Blaine, standing, rubbing a hand over his cheek.

“Kurt,” Blaine offers lamely, tears lacing his voice, his hand raised in surrender, “I-I'm sorry.”

And Kurt stalks regally out of Blaine's room and back to his car. As he sits behind his steering wheel, he tries hard to convince himself that he must have allergies because that's the only reason tears are spiking his eyes.

__________________________________________________

“Mercedes.”

“Kurt! Is everything alright, boo?”

“Yeah, everything's fine. So, I was wondering if you'd like to accompany me to the mall today to look at the new Marc Jacobs collection?”

“...Kurt, are you sure everything's alright?”

“Of course. Why wouldn't they be?”

__________________________________________________

A week goes by and Kurt is surprised at how well he's doing. He's really working on himself, delving into his friendships with the kids in Glee and with Hunter, and refraining from relationships. He's there when Mike does a snazzy dance performance in Glee Club to express his undying love for Tina, and is genuinely happy for them when they're back to being absolutely adorable and exchanging “Asian kisses.” He's stopped thinking about Blaine (well at least for every second of the day), his grades are improving, his family seems to find him more tolerable.

He might be able to do this.

That's why, when David calls him to invite him to Warblers benefit concert, Kurt only hesitates for a second before accepting. He can do this. The Dalton boys were good friends to him when he was lost and still a fragile, confused boy hiding from Karofsky, and he can still be friends with them, in spite of the fact that they are all close to his... well _him._ He can go to the concert and cheer on the Warblers as a team, and ignore Blaine completely, of course.

The day of the concert arrives, and Kurt drives over to Dalton and gives good-natured hugs to his friends, before they push him down to the audience seats where they've reserved a place for him. Kurt has brought Hunter along (for Hunter's own enjoyment, Kurt tries to convince himself, not at all for his own protection), and is glad that the Warblers embrace him with open arms (in spite of the fact that Hunter had foiled Wes and David's futile attempts at Operation: Reunite Kurt and Blaine). Hunter's eyes are alight with excitement, as he's never seen a Glee Club perform other than the New Directions—and possibly the fact that the Warblers are bursting from the seams with talented, good-looking boys.

The lights dim and Kurt sits next to Hunter, his breath hitching as the curtains open.

Kurt's not surprised when the Warbler boys start layering on the notes for “Perfect” by Pink (of course it's the clean version), because if Blaine has had anything to do with it, of course it's a Top 40 song by one of Blaine's favorite artists. Kurt's not surprised that the Warblers are swaying as a unit, synchronized in all their movements to the choreography. Kurt's not surprised that their voices overlap in complete harmony, that they belt out the notes effortlessly.

Kurt is surprised, however, when Wes takes the lead. He finds himself searching through all of the Warblers' faces, and he is surprised when he doesn't see Blaine at all.

Kurt feels something rising in him, a new anxiety. Where is he? Even if Blaine had been informed that Kurt was coming, he would still have come to do the show—after all, all of the proceeds from the concert are being donated to a battered women's shelter, and Blaine is too damn charitable of a person not to show up.

“Where's Blaine?” Hunter whispers in his ear, and Kurt looks at him, shrugging, pretending not to care.

“I don't know.”

Kurt doesn't really pay attention to the rest of the Warblers' line-up because he's too busy searching for a smaller boy with chocolate hair and dancing eyebrows.

Blaine doesn't show up the whole time.

__________________________________________________

It's after the show, when the Warblers are whooping and hi-fiving and hugging that Kurt puts on a false mask of happiness.

“You guys were stunning,” he compliments, returning several hugs. “But, um... where was Blaine?” he asks, feigning disinterest.

Thad's forehead is lined with creases. “I'm not sure. He was supposed to be here because he always sings lead and we nearly all had heart attacks when we realized he wasn't here—but Wes took his first solo and then we just alternated from there.”

Ah. So Blaine _was_ supposed to be here.

“Where do-” Kurt starts, when he feels a hand on his shoulder and is spun around to meet another face.

It's Wes, and anxiety and shock are etched deep into every one of his features. He anxiously fumbles his cellphone in his hands. “Kurt, you need to come with me. Blaine's hurt.”


	7. Chapter 7

Kurt feels physically ill. His hands are clammy, his heart is racing, his face feels flushed, and his fingers are trembling. He finds himself absentmindedly wondering if maybe he'll have to check in as a patient at the hospital when they finally arrive.

He glances to his left, where the driver is sitting—thank God for Hunter, honestly, because Kurt and Wes and all of the Warblers are in no condition to drive. Hunter's lips are pursed resolutely, his fingers gripped around the steering wheel of Kurt's car in determination. Kurt looks behind him and catches snippets of a worried Wes, whose face is drawn and pale in anxiety, a shocked-looking David who has an arm slung around Thad, who looks as though he's on the verge of tears.

“What did—what do you know about his condition?” Kurt manages, his voice shaking, as he directs his question to Wes.

Wes fiddles with his cellphone, his eyes shining with anxiety. “I-I don't know—the hospital just called me because they said I was the last person on his call list and they said,” he swallows hard, “h-he was in critical condition.”

The words slam hard into Kurt's chest and he finds himself struggling to breathe. He attempts to slow his breaths as he hears Thad let out an audible whimper behind him. Blaine is _hurt_? How badly? How did this happen? Is he going to be alright? Is he going to—no, Kurt can't bring himself to even think _that_...

The drive to Lima Memorial is less than half an hour from Dalton—less than that, even, because Hunter is speeding recklessly—but to Kurt, it feels like a million years. When Hunter finally pulls into the parking lot at the hospital, Kurt closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. He should hate Blaine, he shouldn't care that he's hurt—that he's in _critical condition_ , because Blaine has hurt him, Blaine was a coward, Blaine was so wrong...

But he meant a lot to Kurt before. And Kurt knows this. And it's so damning that somebody that hurt him this much still means this much to him, but what the hell can he do? He's helpless to his feelings for Blaine—his rationale had no use when he fell hopelessly in love with Blaine the first time he met him to now, when after _everything,_ he still loves him.

Kurt sniffles softly, and feels a supportive hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, you alright?” asks Hunter, his eyes soft and gentle, full of sympathy. 

Kurt sighs, a thick, mucousy sigh and looks at his friend. 

“I don't know,” he admits, taking Hunter's extended hand. “I guess I'll find out.”

_______________________________________________________

“What do you mean we can't see him?” Wes's voice is sharp and irritated, and the nurse peers at him sternly over thin-framed wire glasses.

“I'm sorry, sir,” she says, her lips pursed hard. “The doctors are working on stabilizing him—your friend has lost a lot of blood. And only family is allowed in right now-”

“I received a call from the hospital that said none of his family members could be reached,” Wes spits bitterly. His voice contains the complete air of authority and, Kurt realizes with shock, composure that Kurt generally associates with Blaine. “As this is the case, I am the one who should be in there. Or rather,” Wes's expression softens as he nudges Kurt forward gently, “he should.”

“And who are you?” the nurse asks. Kurt barely registers her name tag. 

Betty, he thinks wearily, and then he realizes he still hasn't answered her question.

“I... I am,” Kurt swallows hard, searching for an answer. What the hell is he to Blaine? Why is he here? Why is it that this cowardly asshole... why is it that _Blaine_ has such a hold on him? “I'm Blaine's...” he tries again, his voice trailing off, as he stares at the ground bleakly.

“He's Blaine's boyfriend,” Hunter supplies helpfully from the background.

Kurt shoots Hunter a dark, shocked look, and Wes visibly stiffens next to him, but Kurt drops his hands uselessly to his sides. He is—was—after all, Blaine's boyfriend. There's some truth to this statement, though they're not together anymore and Kurt hates everything that has happened, but it's okay. He'll take this.

“Oh,” the nurse says, looking as though she has a bad taste in her mouth. She looks Kurt up and down, and Kurt squirms uncomfortably under her scrutinizing gaze. Betty breathes in a disapproving manner, and then continues in a cold voice, “Very well then, I'll let you know when I hear anything about Mr. Anderson's condition.” She waves the boys off to the waiting room nonchalantly, her eyes narrowed in disgust.

Kurt feels helpless, blind rage fill up inside of him, but follows Wes wordlessly to the waiting room. It's then, that behind them, they hear Betty whisper in a quiet hiss, “Freaks.”

Wes clenches his hands hard and throws Kurt a sympathetic glance, and Kurt feels the nervous prick of the hair on the back of his neck stand up the way it usually does whenever he is confronted with blind hatred, but it's Hunter who speaks up.

“You know,” Hunter says, clearing his voice, his eyes hard and steely as he stares straight into Betty's, “Kurt and Blaine and _I_ are gay, but that doesn't give you the right to treat us like that. You know, the funny thing about gay people is that ignorant, narrow-minded fucks like you,” (at this Kurt gasps audibly and Betty's mouth drops open in shock), “think we're abnormal. But the thing that's funny is homophobes hate gay people for no reason and Kurt and I were ready to give you a chance. Now, why don't you tell me who the freak is?”

Betty's mouth opens and closes uselessly, and in spite of everything—in spite of the fact that they're in the hospital and Kurt's heart is racing at a rate that is probably abnormal and his hands are shaking in anxiety, a small grin breaks out on his face. Betty-0, Hunter-1.

Betty splutters, and Hunter gives a tight smile to Kurt.

“Come on,” he says, extending his hand, “let's wait.”

_______________________________________________________

The hospital waiting room is adorned with framed paintings of blooming flowers, smiling children. Kurt scoffs as he studies a picture of magenta tulips in a lush field of grass. His expression softens as he wonders how on earth a mourning parent or a grieving child or a petrified grandparent can focus on happy images when one of their loved ones is in the hospital. 

Kurt is no stranger to Lima Memorial. He remembers the diagnosis of his mother's cancer—how it was the first time he'd ever seen his father cry, which made him start crying. His mother, soothing him, telling him that everything would be okay. When his mother was undergoing chemotherapy, the visits were frequent. Kurt remembers, sitting wide-eyed and pale-faced, not really understanding, as his dad would try to reassure him that “of course your mom is fine,” and his mom's shaky, thin hand as she squeezed his. Her faint, thin smile; her hollowed cheekbones. Her weary eyes. 

And then, how she didn't get better.

And how she moved to the hospital permanently. He and his father crowded around his mom's bed, watching helplessly as she wasted away. The tubes sticking out from all over her body, the loss of her hair—everything, her eyebrows and eyelashes too. How she grew weaker and weaker with every day until she finally let go.

And of course, Kurt remembers his dad's visit to the hospital after his heart attack, and the icy cold fingers of fear clamping around his heart as he wondered if his father would ever wake up.

So now, sitting there in the waiting room, Kurt sits numbly. Around him, Wes, David, Thad, and Hunter are more quiet than they have ever been. None of the boys make eye contact with one another or even say a word. Eventually, Wes picks up a magazine and flips disinterestedly through it, seeming relieved to have something to do. David clears his throat and says he has to go to the bathroom; Thad and Hunter start a conversation.

Kurt sits, immune to it all, concentrating on the thudding of his heart and the emptiness of the white walls save the pathetic, cheerful pictures.

There's an ahem at the door, and all the boys look up.

“Mr. Anderson isn't awake yet, but you can come see him if you'd like,” a nurse says. She's wearing a pink shirt and sky blue pants printed with multicolored teddy bears which is a travesty to fashion, but Kurt ignores her outfit, and follows her, his heart thudding in his chest.

_______________________________________________________

It's worse than Kurt could have ever imagined.

Kurt takes one look at Blaine's bruised body and feels his knees go weak. His legs crumple from underneath him, like they're made of jelly.

The last thing he hears before the darkness comes up to meet him is Hunter's worried yelp, calling his name.

_______________________________________________________

When he comes to, a goose-egg sized lump is on his forehead and his head is spinning and Wes, David, Thad, and Hunter are crouched above him, concern written all over their faces.

“Kurt, you alright?” comes Hunter's worried voice. He gets onto the ground next to Kurt and peers into Kurt's blue eyes. “Kurt, you should take it easy, okay?”

Kurt nods numbly and stands up without a word; he stares at the floor. Hunter's hands flutter nervously next to him, “Kurt, we don't have to do this now. I can take you in later—Wes, Thad, and David can just visit first and then you and I can come in later-”

“No, no, I'm fine,” Kurt manages, but everyone can hear the lie pooling on his tongue.

Kurt's head is reeling still and his eyes involuntarily connect with the still figure in the hospital bed and—oh God, oh God, this isn't happening...

Blaine's body is battered from where it's visible underneath his light blue hospital gown. His face is a mottled mass of black and purple, with his cheeks covered with a blossom of bruises, and his right eye is red and swollen shut. There are dark fingermarks around his neck from where he's been apparently strangled. One of his arms, as well as his entire ribcage is swathed in bandages. Kurt can't see Blaine's legs from where they're covered with a flimsy hospital blanket, but he imagines that his body is probably banged up as well.

Blaine looks like someone who has been tortured—dragged through Hell and back. Other than the sound of drops dripping from Blaine's IV and the steady beeps of the monitor regulating his heart race, there's complete, eerie silence.

Next to Kurt, Wes lets out an audible whimper, his eyes full of pain and distress as he takes in his best friend's condition. David puts his hand on Wes's shoulder in what is meant to be a comforting manner, but his own lips are pressed in a straight line; Thad crumples down into a chair, his hand over his mouth, his eyes wide in agony. Hunter stands behind Kurt, muttering consoling words, as though he's afraid Kurt is made of glass and will shatter any moment.

And his worries are not unfounded.

As he stands there, at the head of Blaine's hospital bed, something in Kurt breaks. The dam bursts and a flood of tears, a torrent of sobs rush out of him like a tsunami swallowing everything in its path. 

“Oh God, oh God,” he manages, bordering on the edge of hysteria. And he feels himself succumb to the panic and the horror and the shock of seeing his ex-boyfriend lying there motionless on the hospital bed. He starts trembling, his shoulders and hands shaking sporadically. Kurt can't focus on what is going on, but he knows Hunter's comforting arm around his torso, steering him out of Blaine's hospital room, and back into the waiting area where Hunter seats him down and shushes him with anxious and useless comforts. “Oh God.”

But God isn't there with him in the hospital to give him strength and damn it, this is why he doesn't believe in God in the first place because what kind of sick God would give him someone so perfect in every way and then take him away and then put that previously loved one in the hospital under bright lights and monitors that Kurt doesn't understand, beaten to the point of no return?

And what the _hell_ happened? How the hell did someone as poised and composed and well-liked as Blaine end up beaten half to death in the hospital? And where the hell is Blaine's family?

Kurt clasps a hand over his mouth to muffle his whimper, his eyes spiking with unshed tears again. Hunter squeezes his free hand supportively, his eyes drifting worriedly to his friend's painful expression.

“God, Hunter,” Kurt whispers, his voice shaky and watery, “to see him... like _that_. I have no idea what the hell I was expecting, but it wasn't that at all. And this whole time...” Kurt sighs, the sound shuddery and unfamiliar in his throat, “I just... I _wanted_ him to hurt as badly as he'd hurt me—God, there were times I wished he were _dead_ because he'd hurt me so much, but I... you have to believe me, Hunter,” desperation clouds his features, “I never, _ever_ wanted _this_.”

“You love him,” Hunter replies carefully, “and he broke your heart. It's a natural response, Kurt, to want revenge—to wish harm on someone who has hurt you. But,” he reassures quickly, as Kurt gazes up at him for an answer, “I know, Kurt. I know you would never want this for Blaine.”

“Oh God,” Kurt clasps his hands together in his lap, “God, Hunter. I was so mean to him the last time I saw him and what if...” his hands tremble, “what if he dies and the last thing I have to remember him by is how I slapped him and walked away?”

“Kurt,” Hunter breaks in gently, “he knows you loved him.”

“But I was so mean to him. He thinks I _hate_ him-” Kurt starts, but Hunter interrupts him.

“The opposite of love isn't hate, Kurt,” Hunter levels his eyes to Kurt's, the golden flecked eyes staring straight into Kurt's blue ones. “It's indifference. And you may have hated him—or tried to hate him—and he knew that you were only doing that to defend yourself. He wronged you, Kurt. The fact that he's hurt now doesn't change that. You were only trying to protect yourself from getting more hurt.”

Kurt closes his eyes, letting Hunter's words pass through him, trying to understand. He knows. He knows that he wasn't wrong—he knows that Blaine was the coward, but Blaine is in the hospital and Kurt's scared and everything is going to hell.

“Can you...?” he says hesitantly, and then leans into rest his head on Hunter's shoulder.

“Yeah,” Hunter replies, understanding. He pulls Kurt into an embrace and lets the porcelain-skinned boy lay his head against his chest.

Kurt closes his eyes again, and listens to the steady lull of Hunter's heart.

And tries to make himself believe everything's going to be okay.

_______________________________________________________

The heavy thud of footsteps shake Kurt awake. He blinks blearily, high white walls adorned with paintings filling his eyes, and he starts, wondering where he is. He wipes a trail of drool from his lip and looks up, his face flushing instantly as he takes in Hunter, who appears to have just woken up as well. His eyes look exhausted but amusedly at Kurt.

“You alright?” he asks, and with that, Kurt remembers.

He remembers where they are, he remembers Blaine's beaten body, he remembers everything and it's all he can do to keep himself from falling apart right there.

 _Pull yourself together, Kurt,_ he tells himself sternly, _you are not a pathetic, fragile little boy. Stop crying._

“What's going on?” Hunter asks Wes and David, who have just entered the waiting room. Thad comes into the entrance, nursing a styrofoam cup filled with cheap, watery coffee.

“Blaine's awake,” Wes says, his eyes looking anywhere but at Kurt's pale face. “And,” he swallows hesitantly, hurtfully. “He wants us to go home.”


	8. Chapter 8

What the hell? Kurt usually tries to approach things rationally and practically, but seriously, what the hell? He cares about Blaine. Doesn't Blaine understand that? Why else would he be here? And what kind of solely selfish person is Blaine if he doesn't take into the account that other people care about him? That he has friends who are worried about him? That _Kurt_ (and Wes and David and Thad and even Hunter) has feelings and that his feelings are important too?

Kurt looks at Wes, his mouth agape. “What did you say?”

Wes repeats his statement bitterly. “Blaine asked us—all of us—to go home.” His eyes are downcast and injury fringes on his voice. He fiddles with his car keys before finally meeting Kurt's eyes, “I guess I can drive.”

Every single worried and sick and melancholy emotion that had been coursing through Kurt's veins vanishes. Instead, he is suddenly filled with a blind, unleashed rage that makes him see red. Who the hell does Blaine think he is?

His heart reeling in his chest, he stabs the linoleum with his feet as he stalks furiously back to Blaine's room. He ignores Wes's and David's cries behind him, slams the door of Blaine's hospital room open, and stalks in. Blaine is still prone and still and pathetic on his bed, but the pity and horror at seeing his former boyfriend beaten to a pulp has been dissipated by a ferocious anger devouring every bit of Kurt's compassion.

“What is _wrong_ with you?” is how Kurt starts, nearly spitting his words in his wrath. Seething in rage, he barrels on without inhibition, “It's one thing for you to ask _me_ not to come in—I understand that you're ashamed of your past actions—but Wes and David and Thad? They've done _nothing_ except come and visit their best friend who's in the hospital and you have the nerve to tell them you don't want to _see_ them?”

“Kurt-” comes Wes's meek protest, “Kurt, it's okay-”

“It's _not_ okay!” Kurt interrupts Wes and spins around to confront the slim Asian boy. “We—you—rushed over here as fast as we could, going nearly insane with worry, and I had a mental breakdown over the stress of seeing him like _this_ and now he wants us to leave! Leave without seeing him! Like we're nothing to him!” Kurt turns to face Blaine again. “What is _wrong_ with you?” He realizes that he's hysterical, that his voice has been crescendoing up and down, that his eyes are again spiking with tears, but he wants Blaine to hear his words, to _listen_ to him. 

Blaine is speechless from his still position in his bed. His fingers trail uselessly against the blanket. His left eye—the one that isn't swollen shut—zeroes in on Kurt and his busted lip starts trembling. And God _damn_ it, even in this bloody, battered state, Kurt can't help but still think that he's _beautiful._

Kurt chokes on his thought, bringing a fist to his mouth to hide his sound of desperation. The tears are flowing freely now; the blind rage has slowly fading to be replaced with an overwhelming fatigue. He loves Blaine, why can't Blaine just love him back?

Blaine's uninjured, unbandaged hand struggles for a small notepad that lays haphazardly in his covers and a pen. Kurt realizes, with a pang, that there's no way Blaine can talk (or without causing a significant amount of pain) due to the extensive bruising and strangulation his neck has endured. Blaine's hand fumbles with the pen as he scratches hesitantly, carefully, onto the notebook paper.

Blaine's writing has always been small and neat and tidy, the quintessential mark of a gentleman's calligraphy, and it is even now in his beaten state. It's Hunter that picks up the notebook and rips off the page, throwing Blaine a look of unabashed pity as he does so, and hands it to Kurt.

_What happened to your forehead? Are you okay?_

Kurt feels the weight of the words on his tongue, about to ask, “What's wrong with my forehead?” but then he reaches up his hand and feels the huge lump from when his head met the floor earlier. His words fade on his lips and his head starts reeling. Why is Blaine asking about his bruise while he's in the _hospital_? Does Blaine care about him still, in the way that he still cares about Blaine? Does Blaine still _love_ him? 

“I... I passed out,” he admits, sheepishly, “if you must know, my forehead had a little heart-to-heart with the floor.”

Blaine's fingers tremble as he raises his hand and points at the piece of paper clutched in Kurt's grasp. Kurt walks numbly over to him, placing the piece of paper in his sheets and Blaine's fingers gesture to the last three, beautifully scripted words on the page. _Are you okay?_

“I'm fine,” Kurt manages to utter, his voice shaking. “I'm fine, Blaine, but what about you? What happened to _you_?” He tries to mask the utter disbelief in his tone. Blaine is lying, immobilized in a hospital bed, and he's worried about a lump on Kurt's forehead? Why the sudden change of heart? Since when does Blaine ask about how Kurt's feeling?

Blaine's eyes—well one eye—skirts around nervously as he fumbles with the pen. He manages in his impeccable penmanship, _These jocks beat me up. I don't know who they are._

His fingers shake as he drops the pen to his sheets.

“Oh God _damn_ ,” Kurt swears, as Blaine's body begins to tremble. “Oh God.”

“What is it?” Hunter asks rhetorically, as his eyes glance over the sheet of paper and he receives his answer. “Jocks,” he says, addressing Wes, David, and Thad, who look bewildered and out of place in their Warblers uniforms.

“Blaine,” Kurt manages, trying to block out the steely taste on his tongue, “where are your parents? Your mom? Dad?”

At the mention of his parents, Blaine's entire frame starts shaking, in spite of the IV tubes and the bandages. His eyes close shut and he turns his head away from Kurt, emitting a small whimper of pain as he does so.

It's silent save the beeping monitors.

And then—“God _damn_ it!”

But it's not Kurt who has spoken out.

Kurt spins around to see Wes, whose eyes are hollow and open and pained. “What the _fuck_ Blaine? When are you going to tell him the truth?”

Kurt's mouth drops open. In all the time he has known Wes, he has never heard him cuss. And now, here he is, with a mouth as filthy as any sailor, ranting on furiously.

“Fuck it, Blaine Anderson,” Wes rambles on wildly. Kurt shoots a look to Blaine, whose body is now alert, his eye shining with panic. “I know I promised you I wouldn't say anything, but how could you let it get this bad? Don't _give_ me that look! I know, I _know,_ ” his voice arches onto a higher note, “I promised you, but Kurt is my friend too and he _deserves_ to know the truth.”

“What do I need to know?” Kurt asks sharply. “What the hell is going on?”

Thad, David, and Hunter all look bewildered; apparently neither Thad nor David knows anything, and this conversation will happen between Kurt and Wes.

“Blaine loves you!” Wes bursts out, taking two long strides towards Kurt. He grabs both of Kurt's shoulders and looks intensely, his dark brown eyes meeting Kurt's ice-blue ones. “He _loves_ you, Kurt! He has fucking,” (apparently since Wes started cussing, he can't stop), “ _bawled_ every night since he broke up with you and as his roommate, I have had to put up with his crying! He never wanted to break up with you; he thinks about you all the time and it is unbearable to see him in this much pain-”

“Then why the fuck did he break up with me?” Kurt's yelling back at Wes. “Why the fuck did you leave me?” Kurt turns to Blaine, his heart racing in his chest, his blood boiling. “Didn't you see how miserable I was? How could you tell me that you needed to fix your parents' marriage when it was so fucked up and why wasn't _I_ worth fighting for?”

Blaine is trembling, but any trace of sympathy has once again vanished.

“Didn't you see how much I was hurting? Didn't you see how much I loved you?” Kurt is spitting wildly as he strives to understand the situation. “If you loved me, why didn't you stay? We could have worked it out?”

Wes grabs Kurt and turns him to face him again. 

“I wasn't done,” he says, trying to steady and calm his tone. “Blaine broke up with you because...” Wes's voice cracks as he remembers the agony his best friend endured, “because his father, that _bastard,_ threatened that he would come and _kill_ you, Kurt. He knew where you and your family lived. His spineless, soulless mother, that _bitch,_ was his father's pawn—and she came and got him from your house and brought him back home to have his dick of a dad beat and threaten him senseless. And then Mr. Anderson said he would come to your house or to McKinley and _kill_ you for turning his son into a faggot.”

Kurt freezes. Behind him, Thad, David, and Hunter are rooted to their spots, their mouths open in wide “o's” of horror. Blaine has curled up in pain on his bed, tears dripping from his eyes, his one good hand folded uselessly over the notepad.

Kurt shakes his head in disbelief. No, no, this is too fucked up. 

This is not true. 

This is not true.

“What?” he manages, shaking in shock. And then he repeats himself. “What?”

“Don't you _see_?” Wes is almost crying now. Kurt has never seen the Warblers' chair council member lose his composure, and here is Wes in front of him, falling to pieces. “He broke up with you to protect you. He was so afraid, Kurt; he was so afraid that his dad would actually follow through on his promise and he told me, 'Wes, I'd rather not have him and let him find someone else who can love him without fear. If I'm with him, he'll always be in danger and I can't let anything happen to him.' He called himself a coward. And when you started dating Hunter, he said, 'I'm willing to let him go and be happy with someone else because I love him _that_ much.'” 

“But the girl? The blonde girl?” Kurt rambles, searching for an answer.

“Jamie,” Wes answers automatically. “She's a lesbian who goes to Dalton Academy's sister school. Her parents threatened to disown her and she needed a beard and Blaine is a good friend and a very convincing actor.”

Kurt's head is spinning. All this time, all this time that he spent hating Blaine—Blaine was hurting him to save him?

“Do you know how hard that is, Kurt? To let someone go so that he can be _safe_ , even if that means you can't have the one you love? To let the one person you love _hate_ you because you're afraid that if you're with him, he'll be in constant danger?” Wes's voice is lined with unspoken agony for his friend. “And I am so sorry Kurt that I didn't tell you, but he made me promise him that I wouldn't say anything. But yesterday night he told me he was going to go home and tell his parents about you and how he wanted to be with you, and I didn't hear from him all last night and I was afraid when he didn't show up for the performance today, but you have to believe me, Kurt, I didn't know it was _this_ bad. But now his father's gone and beaten the living daylights out of him and I can't just let him keep on lying to you. I can't cover for Blaine anymore. He needs _help_. No, he needs _you._ ”

Kurt forces himself to breathe. 

“I need to sit down,” he stammers, and Hunter pulls a chair for him. Kurt collapses into it, folding his head into his hands.

“God, I am such an awful friend,” moans Wes beside him, who starts pacing furiously. He kneels down next to Blaine's bedside, “I'm so sorry, Blaine. I'm so _sorry._ God, I should have done something. Why the hell did I let it get this far? You told me you had everything under control but that's no excuse,” he wails, raking his fingers through his hair. “I should've called the police from the start but I was afraid we wouldn't have any proof and oh my God, I'm so sorry.”

Kurt works through the newly divulged information. Blaine's father threatened to kill Kurt. Blaine broke up with Kurt to protect him. Blaine's “girlfriend” is a lesbian and Blaine was just being a friend. Blaine lied about the jocks. His father did this. His _father,_ if Kurt can even bear to call Mr. Anderson a father. Kurt thinks about Burt—his own selfless, sweet dad who sat through endless tea parties with him, who allowed Kurt to makeover his closet. His own dad who supports him, who stands up for him, who loves him so much, who he is so blessed to have. But lastly, and most importantly, Kurt singles out this fact: Blaine loves him. Blaine never stopped loving him. Blaine _loves_ him.

Wes knew everything—Blaine confided in him, and Kurt can't imagine how hard it was to keep all of this secret. A small, selfish part of him wishes that Blaine had told _him_ this, told his boyfriend, and Burt and Carole would have known what to do. But he can also see how terrified Blaine must have been. 

He pictures it now like a stop motion film in his head: Blaine coming home, expecting for his parents to sort out their problems and reservations about his sexuality. Blaine, under his father's fists, begging him to stop and pleading with him to leave Kurt out of this. Blaine, in his bedroom, fabricating a lie that was convincing enough to allow him to break up with Kurt. Blaine, after The Phone Call, clutching the phone to his chest, sobbing and breaking down in pain, but thinking in some kind of whacked-up way that this agony was justified to protect the one he loved. Blaine, coming to Dalton, and trying to put on a fake face of happiness in practice. Blaine, going to the Lima Bean like it was a normal routine, while he was dying on the inside. Blaine, crying, as he watched Kurt and Hunter together, wishing he could be in Hunter's place. Blaine, confiding in Wes after his confrontation and fight with Kurt, sorting through the furious words Kurt threw at him and wondering if Kurt actually hated him.

And it brings Kurt here.

He forces himself to stand up; his legs feel like jelly, and he approaches Blaine's bedside and looks down on the damaged boy.

Blaine strains to meet his eyes and then his eyes flicker away nervously.

“Is it true?” Kurt struggles to steady his voice. “This... all of this, is it true?”

Blaine doesn't answer, but tears trail delicately down his bruised cheeks in rivulets. The answer is evident itself in his soulful eye, and with a strained, hoarse whimper, he latches his good hand onto Kurt's hand resting next to his head.

In this simple motion is so much. an apology. A “I am so sorry” for everything that Kurt has been through. A request for forgiveness for not telling Kurt the truth, a plea for Kurt's understanding.

And Kurt accepts.

He knows that this entire situation is fucked up beyond belief. He knows that Blaine has wronged him and that he treated Blaine like shit but he didn't know the truth so in some sense, his actions were justifiable. He knows that he loves Blaine and that Blaine loves him.

He presses a small, chaste kiss to Blaine's matted, chocolate hair. And another, on Blaine's blood-encrusted forehead. And then another, on his bruised lips. And then he uses his free hand to wipe a tear escaping from Blaine's eye.

Kurt looks up briefly to nod at Wes, Thad, David, and Hunter, who all turn and leave the room, whispering quiet goodbyes. They understand that this is a moment reserved for Kurt and Blaine.

And then Kurt turns his attention back on Blaine, back on the selfless, lost, _crazy_ boy who loves him—who is absolutely crazy about him. And Kurt squeezes Blaine's hand. One time. Two times, to reaffirm his reassurance. To let Blaine know that he's not going anywhere.

Kurt doesn't know what will happen. He doesn't know what will happen with school, what will happen to Blaine's life. He doesn't know what will happen when the police come by, when the social workers pass through. He doesn't know who Blaine is going to end up with after the custody battles. He doesn't know if Blaine is going to end up staying at Dalton. He doesn't know if Blaine is going to remain in Ohio. He doesn't know if in the long run, he and Blaine will end up together and make it through. He doesn't know if the love he and Blaine have for one another will get them through this.

But Kurt does know this.

He does know that Blaine is terrified and scared of being with Kurt. At the same time, Kurt knows that Blaine loves him, right now, in this very moment and wants to be with him more than anything in the world. And Kurt knows that he wants to be with Blaine. Kurt knows that he loves Blaine, fully, in spite of everything that has transpired between them, in spite of all the pain they have caused one another. Kurt knows that he will do anything in his power to make sure Blaine is never hurt and abused like this ever again. Right here, as he sits in the hospital bed, with Blaine's body cradled protectively against his chest, Kurt makes a promise to do everything he can to protect Blaine.

And last of all, Kurt knows that _here,_ with Blaine's hand intertwined tightly in his, is where he belongs.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Any opinions/feedback would be really appreciated. I should say that I wrote this story before Blaine transferred to McKinley, we were introduced to Cooper, Sebastian was introduced, etc. So a few things may be inconsistent, but I tried. Haha. :)


End file.
